


Faith, Trust, and Library Dust

by SylphofScript



Series: The Second Spark (to the Right) [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, M/M, Magic, Slow Burn, This Diverges from Canon Somewhere but God Help Me if I Know Where, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphofScript/pseuds/SylphofScript
Summary: There's a problem back in Beacon Hills, and Stiles and Derek are sent to the opposite coast to dig up some information to help. Along the way, they run into more than one problem, and we're not just talking about crappy coffee.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a playlist, which you can listen to [ here.](https://8tracks.com/novakat/library-dust)
> 
> And also with a fair warning, which could also constitute as a mild spoiler (question mark?): this ends on a cliffhanger. I never originally intended it to, but then I got a little carried away and realized I couldn't continue it as it was going (you'll understand if you make it through), so if you'd rather wait for the sequel, [ Between Sleep & Awake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10926333), to finish, then I wouldn't blame you. I just decided fair warning was necessary.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

They had decided, _as a pack_ , that it would be a good idea to break up into pairs and search the different ends of the country for the information Deaton was being such a hardass about getting his hands on now that there were a few ... _problems_ in Beacon Hills.

Well, more problems. There had always been problems; now there were just more. And, yeah, sure. They actually did have a deadline for this one. Because they actually _were_ potentially in a lot of danger from this looming threat.

A threat that was, specifically, of the sprite variety. They made Stiles hate everything about the fact that supernatural crap was indeed a real, honest reality and he, lone human extraordinaire, had managed to slip himself nice and snug right in the center of that whole festering asshole that was a side of supernatural life he would have been pretty content not ever knowing about, regardless of what pre-supernatural Stiles might have said about it being like WoW in real life. It was not like WoW in real life. It sucked so much monkey butt that some days Stiles wished he could hunt down Peter’s AWOL ass and give him a stern talking to. With charts and statistics of how horribly wrong his life as gone thanks to Peter’s asshole move. Possibly with some added screaming.

Maybe a lot of screaming. And throwing of objects.

It depended on the day, really.

Okay. Point being, they had decided to split up, search the areas, keep a short watch to make sure no one followed them. Scrounge up some information if possible. Check back with the group for reconnaissance.

Simple, right? Wrong.

Stiles had been _so sure_ Scott had rigged it so that he would either be saddled up with his girlfriend or with Scott himself. They were best friends. They had a bond. They had been places together, done shit soulmates wished they could say they’ve done. Scott without Stiles was nothing more than a sad, pathetic, unorthodox existence on both ends of the relationship, and they both were fully aware of this.

However, flukes happened, and Scott had not been channeling this same train of thought as Stiles for this particular mission. Despite having been paired with Kira himself, Scott had not rigged the drawing in any definition of the word.

Sometimes the best friend mental vibe got backed up on Scott’s end. It was a minor fault line along the magical plane of their relationship that couldn’t be helped, especially considering who Scott was as a person. Stiles couldn’t fault him, but _damn it_ , Scott. He hadn’t even gotten paired up with Lydia.

Malia had gotten paired with Lydia. And Stiles?

Stiles snagged the one dickbag bachelor that had managed to pop up like a motherfucking daisy at just the right time, for once in his life, to be extremely useful to the task at hand. The guy Stiles had seriously, seriously not wanted to be isolated with for a majority of a week. Or a day, for that matter. Not even really an hour, since it never went well when he was stuck alone with the guy for longer than maybe a couple minutes. They just didn’t click, didn’t have any type of connection. Bodily injury was usually threatened, sometimes more than just injury.

Maiming, death. Yeah, they were a thing. They were threatened. It was not fun.

Just to connect those dots, in case it hadn’t been obvious, Stiles drew Derek’s color, much to his utter disappointment and slight horror.

He was going to be stuck on the opposite coast of the US-of-A with one Mr. Derek Hale, grumpy-wolfman-pants-extraordinaire. Score. He might as well have just feigned death for the rest of the sprite event or something. Or, actual death, even. It would have been way less painful.

Okay, okay. He was being unfair. He liked Derek, he really did. And he actually cared about Derek a lot. Like, _a lot_ , a lot. The guy was confused back when they had first had face-to-face interaction, thrown into his own little ring of hell without even being given a chance to possibly back away at an age that Stiles had once was thought wasn’t that young, but now realizes that “only a few years older than us” seriously meant the guy was _only a few years older than him_ and was in no position to handle the cards he had been dealt so suddenly and painfully.

Stiles got it, he understood. He cared about Derek and he honestly did enjoy seeing him burst his way forth into the world again—this time with a more level head set on those shoulders that still held too much weight—if only because Deaton had probably phoned his ass down and gotten him back into Beacon Hills.

He just seriously did _not_ want to be stuck in one of Derek’s old family homes for a week without some sort of buffer between the two of them. Derek was probably going to kill him.

Torture him? Torture him. At _least_.

Bodily harm of some name was going to happen. Stiles was sure of it.

Hell, Derek had already gotten irked at least three times on the way over to the East Coast, and Stiles had actually been trying his best not to talk that much.

It just, y’know, didn’t exactly work out that well, and Derek had gotten a little peeved. Maybe it was the talking, but maybe it was also the foot-jiggling he couldn’t stop. And the grumbling his stomach had started up thirteen minutes before they were supposed to board their flight. And also maybe the fries he got everywhere in his rush to grab a super quick snack before being confined to a plane that _didn’t even serve complimentary snacks and drinks_ for a period of time that was way, way too long for Stiles’s defunct attention span.

Not to mention the armrest between their seats was busted and wouldn’t fold down properly, so their legs kept bumping together every few minutes until Stiles was forced to cross his legs in order to stop playing unintentional footsie with Derek, who kept his sour gaze locked on the poor, unfortunate soul in the seat directly in front of him.

It was blasphemy, and Stiles didn’t know what the world was coming to.

Thankfully, Derek had calmed down once he’d been allowed to drive to the house and have total reign over his transportation while Stiles channeled his energy and attention into the blessed invention that was his LTE service, and Derek had managed to remain calm as they pulled up into an admittedly terrifying, dark house and proceeded to exit the vehicle in an alarmingly horror movie-like fashion.

With Stiles trailing a few steps behind in a decidedly not-cowering-just-cautious manner, they wandered into the abandoned house and started poking around, Derek immediately going up the stairs to what Stiles assumed were the bedrooms, and Stiles meandering his steady, slow way back into the kitchen to see what he could find in a house that hadn’t been touched in, like, four years.

The results had been less than satisfactory, to say the least.

 

\---

_Well_ , Stiles thinks to himself as he checks under another cabinet for signs of life, only to find another dusty alcove in a room that hadn’t been used in years, _this is definitely not what I had planned_.

“Nothing in here,” he calls out once he’s scavenged through the entirety of the clearly bare kitchen, body now covered in a layer of dust that hadn’t been present when he first stepped into the old house. He tries in vain to brush it off, but only succeeds in getting it in the air and, therefore, in his breathing space. He promptly sneezes, and violently.

“There has to be something,” is the echoed reply. The way the sounds vibrate through the empty, stuffy air sets Stiles’ teeth on edge for reasons he’s not able to name at that moment in time, not that he really tries. He shudders all the same. “Did you check the pantry?”

“Bless you, Stiles,” he mumbles grumpily to himself as he walks out of the kitchen and up the stairs, knowing Derek had to have heard him sneeze, then raises his voice to respond properly, “Yes, honey, I checked the pantry. And the cabinets, and the fridge.”

He stumbles over something when he tries to enter the room Derek is crouched in, unable to see what it is Derek’s doing but too distracted by what he tripped over to care for longer than the split second he had before snagging his foot. “ _Ouch_ —did you leave this here?”

“There wouldn’t be anything in the fridge, the power’s been out for years and anything in there would have rotted,” Derek says instead of answering Stiles’s question, much to his annoyance. Stiles kicks the box at his feet lightly, watching it skid a foot across the dirty hardwood of the floor. Derek turns and glares at him from over his shoulder. “The hell are you doing? Don’t kick that. What are you, five?”

“Might as well be,” Stiles replies, matter-of-fact as he pads over the box and up to Derek’s side. It was true, there was no point in denying it. “What is that?”

That, as it turned out, was a family heirloom, hidden beneath a floorboard in what used to be Derek’s sister’s old bedroom. Stiles stands over Derek, craning his neck to see it. It’s a simple piece, much like the rest of the family objects—just a small triskelion carved into a circle of black wood. Pieces of Mother of Pearl are inlaid in the design itself, clearly from different donors, but all fitting together in a way that seemed more beautiful than if they were one whole. Derek cradles the piece in his hands, letting the weak light from the dying sun in the window glint off the pearlescent rainbow colors. The box, too, is a family heirloom, but it’s empty, which is why Stiles assumes it had been set aside in favor of the token. The same Mother of Pearl design decorates the top, and the box is made of the same wood, but Derek seems less interested in it, and lets Stiles look over it without much more than a glance despite the way he had snapped at him for trying to touch the smaller piece in his hands just moments before.

“We should probably go into town,” Stiles suggests, running his fingers along the old, dark blue velvet that lined the box before gently replacing the lid and moving it to a place where he couldn’t kick it again. Derek doesn’t even glance up. “If we don’t, we won’t be eating tonight. Plus, we need cleaning supplies, this place is filthy.”

Derek grunts a response, and Stiles has to stare at his back a moment before the older man stands up from his crouch, pocketing the tiny disk in one swift motion and levelling an annoyed glare on Stiles once he’s properly on his feet. Derek might have come back to Beacon Hills with what could actually be called a “sunny disposition” now that he had his life in relative order and was much closer to the concept of being happy than he had ever been in the previous years that Stiles had known him, but now that he was stuck alone with Stiles, he had basically reverted back into the same old Derek he had always been. It kind of sucked.

“You’re not driving,” is all Derek says before he walks past Stiles and out of the room, trailing a faint cloud of dust and a suddenly crestfallen Stiles in his wake.

And that was how, thirty minutes of confused driving and shouting directions later, Stiles found himself in aisle eleven of a Target with an empty cart and a huffy werewolf, arms laden with boxed pasta and jarred sauce.

“Hey, this is a pretty good deal,” Stiles says, holding up a jar of white sauce to Derek, who’s leaning on the front bar of the shopping cart looking scarily domestic in his grey shirt and leather jacket. “Maybe we should get a few of them….”

“We’re only staying for a week,” Derek says, eyeing Stiles when he dumps a couple jars in and follows with twice the amount of pasta boxes. He leans in to pick up a box, looking over it with a furrowed brow. “Why are you only getting elbows?”

Stiles shrugs. “I like elbows.”

Derek’s response to this is to reach around Stiles and grab a box of shells, and promptly dump it into the cart. Stiles follows with yet another box and a jar of sauce.

“Because you can’t have an uneven amount of pasta to sauce, or we won’t have enough sauce,” he explains when Derek narrows his eyes at him in confusion. “Didn’t you cook when you were living alone?”

“Got a lot of take-out,” Derek mumbles in reply, trying to sound aggressive with his tone of response, but failing. He had other things to be worrying about than learning to cook, Stiles realizes. And, really. He got it. He really did.

“Lucky you got stuck with me then, huh,” Stiles says, pulling the cart out from under a glaring Derek and pushing it away from the food and towards the cleaning supplies, Derek following a few steps behind. “You’d have probably starved if Scott or Malia had drawn your color.”

Derek says nothing to this, only takes over the cart when Stiles abandons it to peruse the different styles of microfiber cleaning cloths. The conversation as a whole promptly ceases, with each question Stiles tries on Derek only being met with a grunt or some vague hand motion. Stiles eventually stops trying and focuses instead on getting all of the shopping done.

Once the cleaning supplies has been chosen, some clean sets of sheets have been picked up, and everything has been paid for and loaded into the rental car (Stiles had not been allowed to drive home, either), Stiles and Derek find their way back to the house just as the clock ticks to seven.

In the house, Stiles sets about cleaning out a couple of pans and dishes he had found where a lack of food had been while Derek brings in the purchases, setting them on the counter with a bang.

“Was that really necessary?” Stiles asks him drily, setting the water on the stove to boil and turning to level the werewolf with an annoyed look that is only returned in three-fold with an eased practice that proves Stiles was not the only recipient of the expression, even if he was the one who received it the most.

“Shut up.”

“No, you shut up,” Stiles retorts, pointing his finger at the bags, “there’s glass in there. Broken glass in the sauce equals broken glass in the mouth, and you know what that means for a non-werewolf like me? Stitches in the tongue! Blood everywhere! Probably some maiden-like swooning and a swift kiss to the floor, depending on how I’m feeling in that moment.” Derek raises an eyebrow; Stiles shakes his finger once, resolutely. “No glass in the sauce. Get putting them away if you want to man-handle them so badly, I’ll get making this and then we can eat and move onto cleaning.”

Derek narrows his eyes at Stiles, like he allowed Stiles to speak when he did if only because he had had nothing to say, and then mumbles something that Stiles thinks is in the affirmative, because he starts putting the groceries away as soon as Stiles turns back to the stove. Derek has to nudge Stiles out of the way here and there as he puts things in their proper cabinets and drawers, but he does so in a pretty gentle manner for the amount of times he’s been rough with Stiles; he simply pokes out an elbow and lets it sink slightly into Stiles’ side to signal his need for Stiles to clear the way. Sure, it still makes him yelp the first time it happens, but it was way better than, say, Derek lifting him up and tossing him to the side, like Stiles had almost half been actually expecting.

They eat dinner that night relatively peacefully, out of recently-cleaned glass bowls with plastic forks they nabbed from the food court stand thing in the Target before they had made their retreat from the store, the utensils in the house too tarnished to use until they got a proper cleaning; Stiles sitting propped up on a counter with his head against an overhanging cabinet and a socked foot holding him anchor and Derek leaning his hip against the counter across from him, eyes on his food and occasionally out the window above the sink that needs a new set of curtains.

It's ... nice. A little _too_ quiet for Stiles’ tastes, yeah, but it’s a nice dinner, and Stiles manages to keep enough food in his mouth the entire time to keep from saying the first thing on his mind each time something pops up. He doesn’t say a thing, in fact, and Derek either appreciates this or is slightly unsettled but accepting it, judging by the way his brows furrow each time he glances out the window. Stiles isn’t really sure, but he’s never been very good at reading Derek’s expressions. He accepts it, regardless.

They set the dishes in the sink and Derek quietly offers to wash them while Stiles grabs a cloth and some cleaning solution, aiming to get something done before it gets too late.

“So,” Stiles starts while he wipes down the first cabinet, watching Derek rinse a bowl with suds covering his hairy forearms. “Where exactly are we sleeping?”

“You’re sleeping on the couch,” Derek says shortly, like there’s absolutely no room for argument. He really, really should know better; he’s known Stiles for long enough.

“Um, dude. There’s like five bedrooms, why do I have to stay on the couch tonight?”

Derek turns to glare at him, but Stiles only meets his gaze with a raised eyebrow, looking for a legitimate reason for why he was being shunned to the couch when there was obviously a plethora of other sleeping spaces available in the gigantic house. Sure, the couch was probably cushy as fuck and just as nice as his bed back home—if not nicer—but, why? The beds had to be _majestic_.

“You’re not sleeping in my sisters’ beds,” Derek replies, shaking his arms and flicking water off in a sprinkle of droplets. “And you’re not sleeping in my parents’ bed.”

“Okay ...” Stiles says slowly, because that’s reasonable, “but there are two other bedrooms.”

“No, there aren’t. There’s only mine, what was Laura’s and Cora’s, and then my parents’.”

“Bullshit.” Stiles glances up like he can see through the ceiling, face screwed up in less-than-flattering confusion. “There were definitely two other rooms up there.”

“Not bedrooms.”

“Not ... bedrooms.” Processing, Stiles is processing this. Maybe he’s just messed up from all the flying, but he’s not understanding what it is Derek’s saying to him right now. “Okay, then. What are they?”

Derek shrugs. “Rooms. Storage and office. I don’t know, I didn’t rifle through my parents’ shit while I was here. I had other things to occupy my time with.” 

Stiles doubted that, but Derek is already walking out of the kitchen before his dubious expression can reach him. He returns with a blanket, one of the sheet sets, and a pillow while Stiles is scrubbing at another counter and muttering to himself about how to approach demanding Derek’s bed from him since Stiles is the guest in this situation, technically.

“You’re not getting my bed,” Derek says as he passes, before Stiles can even attempt at broaching the subject, heading into the living room where one of the couches—the largest one, at least—is set up. Stiles hears a muffled thump, which he assumes is the noise of the blanket and the pillow hitting the cushions of the couch.

Stiles throws down his rag and stalks out of the kitchen to find Derek neatly fluffing the blanket out, the pillow propped up against the far arm rest and the set of sheets covering the whole thing to protect Stiles’s sensitive skin from the years of dust that’s probably embedded into the leather. For some reason, this deflates Stiles somewhat, and he misses his beat to argue about taking the bedroom.

“How did you know I was going to make you give me it?” Stiles says instead, defeated without the argument. Derek dusts his hands together, gesturing to the bed like it’s a throne and Stiles is his king.

“Intuition and good hearing. Voila,” he steps away, allowing Stiles to shoot him an annoyed glare and flop down on the couch. Okay, yeah. This was comfortable, Stiles had no choice but to admit. The Hales did not fuck around with their comfort.

“Satisfactory, I guess.”

Derek’s response is a slightly amused huff through his nose. Stiles pats the blanket a few times, looking at the pillow he had been given. Both are covered in a simple design of gray swirls. Stiles traces one with his finger, looking up a moment later to find Derek has left the room.

It’s eerie how quiet that guy can move when he wants to. Stiles sighs, fluffing his pillow for a moment before standing up again and going back to his cleaning. Derek disappears to a place where Stiles doesn’t bother to look, figuring he’d resurface again at some point. It’s over an hour before he does, after Stiles has all the counters wiped down and cleaned, half of the cabinets cleared of their dust and the other half waiting until tomorrow to be finished. Stiles doesn’t notice him at first and startles when his eye catches the figure in the doorway, knocking his head against the opened cabinet door.

“Ow,” he mumbles, rubbing at the spot. “Still working the whole creepy looming thing you like to do, I see.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I’m heading to bed.”

Stiles frowns and checks his watch. More time had passed than he’d realized. Shit, had he found his ADHD kryptonite? Why did it have to be cleaning, of all things? “Oh,” he replies a beat late, “Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t stay up all night cleaning, you don’t need to totally revamp the place. It’s just a week, Stiles.”

“Yeah, well. You know what they say, cleanliness is next to impossible-ness. Improbable-ness?” Pressing a thumb and forefinger to his chin, Stiles gives it a mock thought. “Hm.”

Derek opens his mouth, probably to correct Stiles, but stops himself and shakes his head, opting to simply say goodnight and wander back into the dark of the house, the slow thumps of his steps receding onto the second floor. Stiles listens to them, rag clenched in his fist, and suddenly feels a spike of loneliness in the big house around him.

He wishes yet again that he had drawn Scott or Malia ... or Lydia or Kira, for that matter. Any of them would have at least stayed to talk. Instead, Derek’s gone to bed and Stiles is left to himself.

He wanders into the living room an hour later, after setting the cleaning supplies away for the night, and settles into the makeshift bed after shedding his jeans. He falls asleep a moment later with his face pressed into the pillow, a moment too late to hear the telltale creak of a door closing upstairs and the soft footsteps of someone still moving about the house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where that library dust settles in.

Stiles wakes up the next morning with the blanket bunched over his stomach, his pillow at his feet, and Derek looming over him, looking confused, slightly amused, and mostly like he wasn’t sure what it was he was doing up to this point. Talk about creepy. Stiles blinks at him.

“Morning?” Stiles tries, taking a deep breath and blinking sleep away. Derek gives him a short nod.

“Morning. I’m going out for a run,” he states. Ah, that would explain the gym shorts and shirtlessness he was sporting currently. Okay.

Derek pauses for an awkward beat. Stiles uses the moment to sit up slightly. “I was going to see if you wanted to come?” he says, sounding completely like it was a question and not an offer. People skills, Derek. Stiles knew he had them, but for some reason they always vanished when it came to Stiles, unlike with basically anyone else.

Stiles blinks at him all the same, startled. “Oh, uh.”

He stops. Derek waits.

“Well, I mean,” Stiles continues after a second, “I’m probably not going to keep up but, yeah, sure. I could use a little morning dew in my lungs and a wedgie to keep me going for the day. It’ll remind me of the good old days in middle school. Endearment! Manhood!”

Stiles pumps up a fist for emphasis. Derek looks both unsettled by this and slightly regretful of something. Probably that he asked, but Stiles isn’t sure. He also doesn’t really care. He kicks the blanket aside and stands up, Derek moving out of the way and watching him with a raised eyebrow as Stiles stretches and scratches his side. “Just give me a second to change and pee and get my sneakers on and you’ll have yourself one skinny, slow running partner to take this world on with.”

“... Right. I’ll meet you outside.”

“Sweet.”

\---

Turns out, the run is less of a run and more of spurts of fast movement interrupted every so often by Derek stopping short and glancing around, chest puffing with the exertion it took to reach where he was and nostrils flaring with … something werewolf-y . Stiles is too busy wheezing and clutching his knees to really question it once he manages to catch up.

They might not have been terribly long running spurts, but shit. Derek could _run_. The muscles that guy was packing were definitely not just for show. Stiles is pretty sure they never have been.

Fucking werewolves. Scott at least had the occasional (very loose definition of occasional here, but he at least tried) decency to stop and let Stiles tentatively recuperate before leaving him in the dust all over again.

That is, when he bothers going with Scott in the first place. These days he usually just stays in his Jeep. Or room. Or with Lydia, wherever she might be. He was probably more out of shape than usual. Derek could still give him a break, though. The jerk.

Stiles takes the most recent pause to wipe his face with the front of his shirt and grimaces when his slicked skin meets with an already-damp section of fabric. _Gross_. When he drops it again, Derek is staring at him with way more intensity than the situation warranted.

Yup, the guy really hasn’t changed much. Figures.

“Did you ... get a good sniff?” Stiles asks him, unable to keep his heavy breathing from interfering with his words. Derek rolls his eyes and doesn’t dignify the question with an answer, so Stiles continues in hopes he can have a longer break before taking off again. “What ... even are you doing? Is there something ... _ugh_ , you’re looking for? Sniffy sniffy for … _haaaah_ mother of god … _why_.”

“I’m checking the boundaries and wards,” Derek responds, looking through the trees to his left again. “They’re not supposed to weaken even in the absence of the pack, but ...”

He trails off, but Stiles knows where he’s going with it.

“But they might not be as strong without the creator around to, ah—reinforce them with their presence,” Stiles finishes, still feeling like a woman in labor, and Derek gives his agreement with a single curt nod. They had been careful words; Stiles knew what it was like to have a dead family member referenced without any padding. He wasn’t going to inflict that on Derek, dicklord or not.

To his surprise, though, Derek looks slightly less grumpy when he turns his attention back on Stiles. In fact, he looks a little grateful at the care Stiles took with his words.

Huh.

“So,” Stiles says immediately, because he sucks at situations where he’s getting something he’s not accustomed to getting from specific sources. Like a form of gratuity from Derek Hale. “Are we safe? Are the boundaries still marked or do I need to turn my back and let you have a moment to whip it out and mark your territory?”

And there it goes. Derek’s expression falls back into one of annoyance, and Stiles only feels mild disappointment at his running mouth and lack of tact in various situations.

“That’s not how it works, Stiles,” Derek growls. “The boundaries are fine. I don’t think anything will be broaching the wards while we’re here.”

“Well, that’s great, now I don’t have to worry about someone busting into the house while I’m sleeping on my couch and making fun of my boxers and possible morning wood.”

Derek’s face crinkles into a mixture of expressions, all mildly disturbed. Possible TMI, Stiles belatedly understands, but whatever. All guys get morning wood; it was a thing. Derek could deal, it’s not like he could claim he wasn’t going to be popping anything while he was there.

Well, okay. Maybe he could, Stiles wasn’t sure about the potential sex drive Derek could be housing in that body of his, but, come on. The likelihood was that he couldn’t argue the statement, and—this was horribly off-track.

Stiles gives himself a shake of the head, then regrets the motion immediately and clutches his head with a hand as he wills the world to stop spinning. Maybe he should have packed more of his Adderall; his attention span was splintering like a bitch, and it was still early in the morning. He was here for research, and research required focus. Focus he definitely didn’t contain right in this moment.

“Anyway,” Stiles says, ready to move on with the conversation. He cracks open an eye he had squeezed shut to find Derek in no better humor that he had been a second ago. “We’re safe. Good. Fantastic. I am thrilled with this overall development.”

“I never said you would be safe, just that the wards would hold up while we were here,” Derek corrects him, looking just the tiniest bit smug under the remnants of his previous discomfort. Stiles blanches.

“What’s that supposed to—Hey! Derek!” Fuck, the shithead did that on purpose. Stiles grumbles to himself, watching the muscles move in Derek’s back as he takes off into a run again and wishes he hadn’t agreed to this bullshit in the first place. “ _Asshole_!”

His voice echoes through the forest as he launches into motion again and attempts to catch up to the werewolf in front of him, and then, for a moment, Stiles swears he hears a huffy laugh follow behind his exclamation. But maybe it’s just the wind.

\---

Eventually, Stiles has to beg for mercy from the pseudo-suicide stint Derek has wrought upon him (seriously, Derek _knows_ he’s not a werewolf, what the hell is his problem?), and Derek promptly drops him back off at the house before sprinting away again in a whirlwind of glistening muscles and superhuman adrenaline. Stiles collapses on the front porch, gasping and sweating pools worthy of swimming in, then lies there for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before he’s able to pull himself up and drag himself into the house for a hot shower.

When he does manage to get in there, it’s like heaven ascended on his body and graced him with glorious relief, first in the form of icy caresses and then a slow climb to hot and steamy bliss. Dare he say, it was almost better than sex. He even debated going through the process all over again just so he could experience rebirth via lime-coated shower stream water all over again. He stays in there a good forty-five minutes, and then pulls himself out to get back to work. Or, get started on work. Same thing.

When Derek finally comes back, huffing and stretching and looking a little too wild from his endeavors of the forest, Stiles is crouched in front of the coffee table in the living room with papers spread haphazardly in front of him. Derek doesn’t see him at first, too busy wiping his face down with a hand towel he snagged from god knows where, since it didn’t look like one of the ones they had picked up at Target last night, but his expression immediately turns into his “I’m confused and slightly annoyed at your actions yet again, Stiles” frown once he catches sight.

For once, much to Stiles’ surprise, Derek voices his concern, and he almost sounds mildly interested: “What are you doing?”

“Researching,” Stiles answers, pulling himself up from the crouch with a hand on his back like an old man. Which, after all the shit he’s been put through, really wasn’t so far from the truth. Eighteen going on eighty, that was Stiles Stilinski for you. “Your printer might be old as Gandalf’s balls, but I managed to get it hooked up to my laptop. There’s surprisingly little information regarding East-side sprites than you’d think, considering how much teenage literature about them happens in this exact state. I messaged Deaton with my concerns and he said he’d get back to me once he raided his own personal stash, which, honestly, you’d think he have done first and not after I said something about it.” Stiles gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes, “Supernatural veterinarians.”

Derek looks like he has a number of questions and isn’t sure which he wanted to ask first, blinking twice before seemingly managing to settle on one. He gives a little shake of the head in confusion before actually voicing it. “You managed to get an internet connection in here? I haven’t paid the cable bill in five years, how did you …?”

He pauses, and Stiles opens his mouth to answer, but then Derek decides he isn’t done asking questions.

“Hold on, you went upstairs? I told you you couldn’t go into those rooms, you were supposed to stay downstairs.” Derek looks a little more than a little upset with the idea of Stiles rummaging around the rooms. Which, is weird. And suspicious. But also kind of understandable, considering how often Stiles (and Scott, and Malia, and Lydia; it’s not just him here, they’re all a bunch of assholes sometimes, much to their parents’ displeasure) goes around ignoring both metaphorical and literal “Do Not Enter” signs.

“Actually,” Stiles cuts in before Derek could elaborate and possibly only get angrier, “you never said I couldn’t go into the rooms, just that I wasn’t allowed to sleep in any of the bedrooms, but!” He rushes his hands up to cut Derek off further, though he’d clearly been about to snap at Stiles. His teeth are slightly bared, but he eases at Stiles’ show of hands. “But, you have a printer in the room next to the bathroom down the hall. I used that one. And the Wi-Fi came from my phone, I used it as a hotspot. Chill, man, I’m not prancing around your territory like a wayward jackass, I swear.”

Derek relaxes, and then has the decency to look a little ashamed at jumping conclusions. Good. “So you had to ask Deaton for more information. There’s nothing useful in what you found there?” He waves the towel he’d been using in the direction of the coffee table.

“Not really,” Stiles replies as he wrinkles his nose up at the towel. It was definitely past its expiration date and in dire need of a heavy duty wash cycle. Did they grab laundry detergent? Stiles didn’t think they did, since laundry hadn’t been on the list of things that needed to be done in the week they were going to be here. “Some of its pretty dubious, too. There’s a lot of contradicting theory about where they came from, how they live, why they infest certain areas at certain times, blah, blah, blah.”

Derek kneads a muscle in his shoulder. “What about removal?”

“Zilch.”

“Not anything? They’ve definitely had a sprite problem on this side of the country.”

“Well, whoever took care of it those times, they didn’t bother recording the process for anyone in the future to use on their Peskipiksi Pesternomi.”

“Sprites.” Derek blinks. “What did you just say?”

“It was a reference.”

“Oh.”

With a sigh, Stiles drops back down to the floor and shuffles his printed papers around, muttering to himself about a lack of taste in this household, which he knows Derek hears because his expression shifts to annoyance. Stiles ignores it. “Did you check on all of the wards out there?”

“Most of them,” Derek replies after a beat. He scrubs his hand through his hair, looking frustrated. “This territory is massive, and there’s definitely been a breach of agreement on the west side from the way the trees are torn up, but I’m going to go back out tonight and fix them as much as I can.”

This unsettles Stiles more than a little. He didn’t really want to go through another territory war, especially not when it was just the two of them here to defend it. Plus, hello, human. “Should I keep a gun under my pillow tonight while I sleep, just in case?”

Derek gives Stiles a look of surprise. “Where did you find a gun?”

“I didn’t,” Stiles admits, “and I’m pretty sure you can’t get one in the state of New York anymore. I think there’s a really big steak knife in the kitchen, though. Maybe that’ll save me a few seconds of time if I can aim right.”

“You don’t need to sleep on a steak knife. The break-in smelled old. Really, really old. I don’t think they’ve been around for a long time, and from the way everything seemed to be untouched when we got here, they didn’t bother ransacking the area and reclaiming it for themselves. What did remain of their scent only stretched a few yards into the area, which means they got in and then got right back out.”

“They just broke the line of defenses and then didn’t take the goods?” Stiles frowns, because that definitely sounded … _off_. So many things were already wrong with the big picture, but as more things kept being added to it, Stiles was starting to get more than just suspicious.

Derek doesn’t seem to be on the same wavelength as Stiles, and only shrugs. “It might have been an accident. After … everything that happened, the Hale territory wasn’t reinforced as often as it used to be. We still have a big name in the area because of our rank, but they were most likely a newly formed pack from a remote location trying to get their legs.”

It still sounds wrong to Stiles’ ears, but he doesn’t push the matter. He might know a lot about werewolves after all the years he’s had to learn about them to keep both him and the actual werewolf that was Scott McCall, obtuse cinnamon bun extraordinaire, alive, but he was still sketchy when it came to some areas, and this seemed like more of a Derek area than a Stiles area.

He’d stick to the sprites.

“Alright, as long as I can sleep safe in my bed at night and not worry about my prone human form being ripped to pieces before I can even become coherent it’s happening, I’ll leave the sticky situations to you.”

“You’ll be fine, Stiles. I can handle whatever happens, if anything even happens. Which, it won’t.”

“My hero,” Stiles says drily. “Say, do you have a library card?”

The sudden change in subject seems to throw Derek off guard. He blinks at Stiles in confusion. “What?”

“Library card. Or did you never read books? Actually, that wouldn’t really surprise me at all, the last time I saw you reading a book was when I was using you to convince Danny to help me. Ah, good memories.”

Derek looks like he thinks differently of the matter. “I was hiding from Argent; you took advantage of me while I was there.”

“Same thing,” Stiles says with a shrug. “But that’s beside the point. The whole library card thing is the point.”

Derek grunts. “I read books.”

“Congratulations, but do you have a library card?”

Instead of answering, Derek turns and leaves the room. Stiles swears the air glistens with his evaporated sweat as he vacates it. Turning back to his mediocre findings, Stiles reads through them again, trying desperately to glean _something_ from the same paragraphs and pictures he’s already gone over three times now.

He’s squinting down at a crude cell phone photo of a shiny, shimmering _thing_ that is claimed to be a sprite on the attack when something flies onto the table in front of him. Panicked and caught unaware, Stiles scrambles away from the table, knocking both knees against the bottom hard enough to upset it and send some papers flying.

“ _Ow_ ,” he says immediately after, not even needing to see what it was that startled him to know it wasn’t dangerous, because Derek had just stepped forward and picked up what papers had fallen, smirking. Jackass. “Give a guy a little warning, maybe? You literally just told me your wards weren’t fully functional, you can’t go throwing things around and scaring the shit out of me.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I told you you’d be fine. No one’s going to come in and maul you.” Setting the papers back, Derek sits down opposite Stiles at the table and picks up the thing that had been thrown—a library card. Jackpot.

Stiles scoots forward and snatches it out of his grip. “Sweet, yes, this is exactly what I needed.”

“I don’t know if it’s still valid, I haven’t used it in years,” says Derek, shrugging.

“Dude, it’s fine. These things last for, like, centuries.” Excitedly, Stiles rocks himself over to one hip and shoves the card in his back pocket. “There has to be something I can get more useful information from, or, in the least, some sort of spell work I can run by Deaton. Anything to get this sprite thing moving, before I die of dust inhalation or chemical burns. Can you permanently damage skin by coming in direct contact with Mr. Clean?”

“No one said you had to clean the place. I told you we’d only be here a week.”

“Excuse you, you might be able to live for months in your own personal filth of a living situation without batting an eye, but I, for one, enjoy walking from one area to another and not being able to track my progress by looking back at my own footprints. Plus, it gives me something to do when the sprite stuff is at a stall.”

“It’s been a day,” Derek points out. “You started cleaning the moment we got here. You dragged me to the store to get stuff so you could continue cleaning for hours.”

“I don’t see your point.”

Derek just looks at him.

“Okay, fine, I might have gone a little nuts on the cleaning. Maybe I was a little nervous being on the opposite coast for the first time in my life. I might even be a little nervous about this whole endeavor! Supernatural shit still squicks me out sometimes, maybe even more so now than it used to. The cleaning gives me something to do, plus it seems to calm my whole ADHD issue.” Kind of, sorta. More like totally annihilates it, which still doesn’t make a lick of sense to Stiles.

Derek looks a little mollified by this. He runs a hand over his mouth and looks down at the papers. The noise of Derek’s fingers scraping over his stubble makes Stiles feels like he needs to tic, which is weird. Everything about this situation is weird. There hasn’t been a single normal instance that’s happened since he set foot inside of this house, except maybe for his endurance this morning. That definitely hadn’t changed.

“You should have asked for a redraw.”

Stiles snaps back to the conversation, confused. “What? Why?”

“You’re the only one who had to leave California for this, the others got to stay in-state. If you were uncomfortable with it, you should have said so. I didn’t really need anyone to go with me, that was just what Deaton suggested. It’s basically just an information and supplies run over here.”

This wasn’t quite what Stiles had expected from Derek at any point in their relationship, but he’d be lying if he didn’t say it made his insides feel a little fuzzy. He knew Derek cared, but showing it was a whole different ballpark. He kind of wanted to see if he could get him to do it again, but he also didn’t want to push his luck.

Instead, Stiles snorts and waves his hand. “Psh, uncomfortable is my middle name.”

Derek cocks an eyebrow, then follows with the other in a look that needed no words.

“Okay, fine, it’s probably more like ‘annoying’ or ‘talkative’ or ‘that one kid who really needs to get a better reign on his priorities’. But that’s so not the point here.”

“The _point_ is that you didn’t need to come.”

“And, yet, here I am.” And, honestly? He wouldn’t have asked to stay and leave Derek alone even if the option had been blatantly handed to him. Sarcastically, he might have, but he wouldn’t have actually left Derek to his own devices. Past experiences had taught him that Derek making his own game plan was never really the best idea. “Besides, I’m the best at researching.”

“Lydia is the best at researching.”

“Lydia and I share a common and equal gift for acquiring and compiling information required for whatever task we’re set at.”

“Debatable.”

“You need me.”

“I could have managed.”

“You need me,” Stiles repeats with finality and Derek doesn’t argue it further, though he suddenly looks like he’s processing this from the way his forehead is scrunched up. Stiles takes that as a hint to move along with things. Rubbing his still aching knees, he gets to his feet. “Okay, I’m going to the library.”

“Now?” Derek asks, looking surprised. “I need to shower first.”

“You’re going?” Now Stiles looks surprised. He’d been 100 percent positive Derek was only here for his looks. And, you know, because it’s his house and everything. Previous argument notwithstanding.

Derek follows suit and stands up, looking just the barest hint of smug as he mocks dusting off his shorts, which he still hasn’t changed out of.  “Shouldn’t I? Two sets of eyes are better than one. Unless you want to stay there twice as long.”

He knows that Stiles knows his attention span wouldn’t last long, and a second hand in the research would help him immensely. He’d be an idiot to tell Derek to stay home, and he wasn’t ready to hand over the “Best Researcher” medal to Lydia yet. One-on-one research hunt session with Derek Hale it is.

 Stiles huffs and walks around the table, smacking Derek on the shoulder as he passes like Coach would do to him when he thought he’d won an argument. Derek doesn’t even budge. “Alright, hit the showers. We’ve leave when you’re done.”

\---

“The Maze Runner,” Stiles repeats not for the first time, pulling another piece of paper from the messy stack he’d crammed into a backpack previously and hastily scribbling down a title and a page number to come back to, then flips the book shut and pulls the one Derek had just slammed down onto the table closer to himself. “We’re now sentenced to doing all of this work in a dusty, silent hole because of _The Maze Runner_.”

Derek grumbles something in response and hauls himself back up the small ladder the librarian had provided them, his werewolf eyes scanning around for more books mentioning anything from the set of key words Stiles had provided before beginning their search.

“I’m just saying,” Stiles continues, aware of Derek’s annoyance in Stiles’ ongoing chatter about the fine Derek had on his account due to having lost a copy of the said title some odd years back, resulting in an inability to remove the _super expensive_ titles they’d need for this research now, but not caring any more than he normally did. Which was not at all. Licking his finger unhygenically, he flips through the worn pages of the tome and wrinkles his nose at the smell that rises into the air the further he moves into the book. Old books and rotting moss? Not exactly the perfume of choice for this task. Or any task not involving direct contact with ancient woods, thanks. “Of all the books to owe an outstanding fine on, it was a mediocre, futuristic knock-off of The Lord of the Flies. I’m almost ashamed of past you. Couldn’t you have picked something cooler? Like Artemis Fowl or Tolkien or something?”

“Hey.” Derek turns around and glares down at Stiles, though Stiles doesn’t bother looking up from the page he’s scanning through. “That was a good series. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s _not_ a knock off of The Lord of the Flies.”

“It was a _series_?” Stiles pipes back, turning away from his work to look up at Derek in bemusement. “How many mazes did those kids need to get lost in?”

“They didn’t—Did you even read the book?”

“Yeah, but it was so long ago that I kind of forgot a lot of the details.” Stiles shrugs. “If I feel the overwhelming need to refresh myself on the plot, I’ll watch the movie or something. Leisure reading is a thing of the past for this guy.”

“Sounds like it wasn’t a thing in the first place,” Derek mutters just loud enough for Stiles’ ears to pick up on, then turns back to looking through the shelves and picks out a black leather book. Stiles sticks his nose up at him before turning back to his own work again. They move through the motions in silence, Derek continually combing through shelf after shelf of books while Stiles scans through glossaries and indexes in search of anything potentially regarding sprites, even in the smallest of cases. Eventually, they reach a standstill—Derek’s gone through every potential shelf and then helped Stiles’ record down every page and title that needs to be looked at and scanned, so all that was left to do was ransack the photocopier—a job easier said than done.

“I did not bring enough change for this,” Stiles says, frowning down at the lists he and Derek have made. Derek does his overbearing leaning-looming thing over the desk, his face scrunched up in annoyance and his fingers curled around the edge of the table loose enough to tap his nails on the wood. “D’you think they’d let us use it for free if we promise to bring back the money later?”

Derek looks up at him like Stiles just asked the dumbest of dumb questions. Stiles gets it. “Right, you’re basically a convicted felon here. Your word isn’t exactly gold, and I guess mine is as good as tarnished by association. How late is this place open?”

Derek looks at his watch—because now he wears one. A lot. It’s kind of weird, actually. “We’ve got a little more than three hours before they’ll kick us out.”

“Great, okay. Then I can run out to a store and get change,” Stiles tries, then backtracks when Derek gives him the look again. “Or … you can go and get the change while I stay here and start opening the books to the pages we need?”

“Yeah, better.”

“You have a gross attachment to a car that’s not even yours, dude.”

“It’s my name on the insurance, I’m not taking any chances.”

Stiles huffs, because Derek’s got him there, and he can’t fight against that logic. So, he doesn’t, and Derek runs off in search of dimes and nickels while Stiles plops himself back down in front of the dusty stacks and starts prying open each of the books they need to get copied, wondering why he didn’t just keep them open in the first place and save himself some of the trouble.

Hindsight wasn’t his forte, obviously.

When Derek comes back, Stiles is doodling a wolf in a leather jacket howling at the moon on one of the scraps of paper, and Derek only gives it a look of confusion and a question of “Is that supposed to be me?” before Stiles redirects his attention and they begin their long process of threading more change into the slow, outdated machine and slapping books down to be copied. They don’t even attempt at conversation beyond small inquiries about the pages being copied and potential importance, but the process still takes them so long that they beg the librarian for an extra thirty minutes when she comes to kick them out. Stiles figures they must look harried and annoyed enough for some pity, because she barely puts up a fight, just stands by and lets them finish, giving no more than a confused glance at the pages as the copier spits them into an overloaded tray. She looks as relieved as they do when they slide the last book back into its place on the shelf and grab the massive stack of paper they’ve accumulated, pretty much running out of the library without looking back.

“So,” Derek starts once they’ve both thrown themselves into the car and started the engine. “Now what?”

“Now what?” Stiles repeats, a little accusatory as he remembers Derek wasn’t the one who did most of the research back in the old days of running amok in the forest and making all the wrong decisions—which made so much sense in retrospect now. “Now we research, dude. Now we throw on our jammies, brew some hella strong cups of coffee, break out the highlighters, and get reading like we’re gonna die young and ill-informed otherwise.”

Derek doesn’t answer immediately, his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Processing, Stiles thinks. After a few minutes, he mutters quietly, “I don’t think we have any highlighters in the house.”

“Highlighters are important; pens won’t cut it. Swing by a store before we get back to the house.”

Derek looks disgruntled at being told what to do, but he swings by the Target all the same, it being the only store the both of them can remember how to get to. When Stiles comes back out to the car after grabbing all the things he deemed essential, he finds Derek already shuffling through some of the top papers.

“This is going to take all night, Stiles,” Derek says as Stiles opens the door and slides into the seat.

“All night? Derek, this is going to take all _week_.”

The lost look Derek gives him almost makes him feel bad for the guy, but the feeling never quite manifests. Derek had gone to college; it was time to put that brain of his to the test.

\---

When they get back to the house, Derek grabs the papers while Stiles manhandles the office supplies and coffee he’d purchased, the former moving to the table and dropping the paper stack down on top of the scattered papers of earlier while the latter goes straight to the kitchen to start brewing the coffee, circling back with the pen and highlighter packs, which he drops unceremoniously onto the table when he reaches it.

“Coffee’s brewing,” Stiles announces, glaring down at the offending sight the table was offering. Derek scowls.

“Do we have to start now?”

“We’ll take breaks, but yeah. We have to start now.” Stiles turns away and leaves the room, but doesn’t bother to raise his voice as he continues talking to Derek. “Go get something more comfortable than jeans on. You’ll thank me three hours into this when you don’t feel like you’re being suffocated by your own clothing choices.”

Derek doesn’t respond, but when Stiles returns to the kitchen to check on the coffee, he finds Derek in a pair of cotton pants and an old Muse shirt. Stiles doesn’t ask. Instead, he pours the two of them cups of coffee and loads his own with sugar, and then leads Derek back to the table to set him down and start on studying. It takes an hour of confusion, light bickering, and stolen highlighters from each other’s hands before they find a rhythm that works well—Stiles starts on one page, scanning and highlighting the things he finds, then hands it over to Derek for a second scan with better eyesight.

It works really well, and when they take their first break of the night to refill their coffee cups, Stiles glances over the work they’ve done and is surprised to find a larger stack of papers than he’d been expecting. A flicker of pride brings a smirk to his lips, and he sips on his coffee. Derek joins him, coffee cup tilted to his own mouth.

“Not bad,” says Stiles when he’s lowered his cup. “We make a good team.”

Derek blinks at him. “So, are we done for the night?”

“Oh, buddy,” Stiles says with mock sympathy. “We’re not even close.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might be a bit before Part 3 will be ready for publishing. Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up and I intend on using the time to edit my own work, which will offset any time that I put into fan fiction. Apologies!
> 
> Even though I'm really bad about using it sometimes, [ my Tumblr](http://www.sylphofscript.tumblr.com) will be the best place to look for updates and such.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: gratuitous OC that pretty much only moves the plot along and will never be featured again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I lied. Here's part three, out of what I'm thinking will be five parts.
> 
> NOW, I'll be off to Camp NaNoWriMo.
> 
> (Probably.)

Stiles startles awake to sunlight filtering in from a crack in the makeshift curtains they had put up, face plastered to the coffee table by the adhering effect of his own drool and body half-tangled in a blanket that draped across his shoulders. He blinks wearily at the mess of papers and highlighters before him for a few moments before casting his gaze around the room, finding Derek huddled up with his back against the table, sound asleep. From Stiles’ point of view, Derek’s position doesn't look very comfortable; he’s got his knees folded up and his arms crossed behind them, chin tucked against his chest at an awkward angle and his own legs tangled in some sort of afghan Stiles had not seen before.

Deciding that he should leave Derek to continue sleeping after the night they’d had, Stiles slowly detangles his body from its downy prison and pulls himself to his feet, wrapping the blanket back across his shoulders as he pads around the table and into the kitchen, seeking to reheat the last of the coffee from last night. When he pulls the nearly-depleted pot towards himself and moves to pour the remains into a mug, he finds that it needed more reheating than previously thought—a _lot_ more. It’s frozen solid in the pot.

“What the—?” Lifting the pot up to peer into it, Stiles frowns at the solid, icy brown layer of coffee, then sets the pot down and runs a hand over his face. “It’s too damn early for this. Was a little coffee in the morning really too much to ask?”

“Probably,” a voice answers behind him and he turns as Derek walks in, rubbing his eye with a fist and looking distinctly sleep-ruffled and drowsy. “Who are you talking to?”

“The coffee’s frozen,” Stiles answers, even though that hadn’t been the question. He waves an irritated had at the pot and shakes his head. None of this is making sense to him, and he isn’t about to start working on that problem himself with the amount of sleep he’s currently harboring under his metaphorical belt, _especially_ without any caffeine in his body. This was wrong on _so_ many levels.

“Frozen?” Derek’s hand drops and he suddenly looks more alert—and confused. His mouth pulls down into a deep frown and he walks around Stiles to grab the pot and see for himself. Pulling his blanket tighter, Stiles slides down to rest his head awkwardly on the counter from where he stands, deciding he isn’t awake enough to give input on the matter beyond what he had already supplied. Derek was smart—he could figure frozen liquid from its not frozen form on his own.

He startles a little when Derek sets the pot back down with a loud clink of glass on granite. Stiles cracks open his eyes to see Derek gazing out the window and stands back up to peer with him. “What? Was there something out there?”

“It’s at least fifty degrees in here,” Derek points out without turning his gaze from the window. Stiles blinks as realization dawns on him. Derek’s right, there’s no reason for the coffee to have frozen like that. Suddenly more awake, Stiles looks back at the coffee again, then up at Derek.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but something’s not right. We need to call Deaton, tell him about the coffee—and the breach. See if he can’t come up with anything we should look for, or reasons why this might be happening if they’re unrelated events.”

\---

Unfortunately, Deaton offers nothing by way of insight on either matter. By the time Stiles has cleaned the pot of the frozen coffee in favor of a warmer version of the ambrosia, thrown together two mugs of it and deposited one in front of Derek, whom is seated back in front of the coffee table looking more and more disgruntled at the phone pressed to his ear, it’s clear that both he and Derek are still pretty much on their own with their problems. Never mind the problems Deaton had placed on them, which were the reason they were in New York in the first place.

“Nothing?” Stiles questions when Derek angrily smacks the phone down on top of some half-finished papers—the ones Stiles had specifically fallen asleep on that night. He can tell by the dried drool smudging the highlighted passage of text. Oops.

Derek mumbles something at a growl and tugs his coffee towards him, taking a long, deep pull while Stiles settles himself opposite and takes a sip of his own coffee. “He admits the frozen coffee thing is weird,” Derek says once he’s set the mug down again, “but he doesn’t know why it would be happening. He also thinks the breach is nothing, even though I can’t get the wards to go back up.”

Stiles splutters on his coffee. “ _What_?” he asks, suddenly frantic. Derek turns his eyes onto him, blinking in confusion at Stiles’ reaction to the news. Like he didn’t understand why this information was something to freak out over. _Really_?

“There’s something interfering,” Derek replies, slowly, his expression hinting at concern the longer he wears it. “It’s probably another pack. Like I said, they know the territory, but the Hale pack has been out of this area for a while. When the wards were broken into, some other pack must have done something. Maybe sparked interference by doing something particularly stupid.”

“But you said you didn’t smell anything,” Stiles points out, thumb pushed to his bottom lip and teeth pressing down on the nail. He sets his coffee down and uses his free hand to pick up a pen and rapidly tap it against the table. “Or what you did smell was really old. Wouldn’t there be something if it were caused by them?”

Derek frowns, immediately reaching out to take the pen from Stiles. “Uh, yeah, I guess. I don’t know. Old magic is weird. They probably couldn’t get their wards up either, if that’s what they were doing. I’ve never had to put up wards around here before, and there are ley lines nearby. There might be a different way I’m supposed to do it. That’s what I was going to try to do last night.”

“Then shouldn’t _Deaton_ have told you that?” Because, really, he was supposed to be the beacon of insight and knowledge here, not Derek. Derek was thrown into this pond of bullfuckery without a snorkel and little experience of how to float, let alone swim. He was still going to need help here and there.

Hence, Stiles being here to provide said help. Duh.

But Derek only shrugged, his mug back to his mouth and the pen he’d taken from Stiles now sliding between his fingertips in distraction. “Deaton’s busy.”

Stiles throws his hands up in exasperation. “But, in short, the wards aren’t back up and might not be going back up.”

“ _Some_ of them aren’t. I managed to get most of them back up the first time I checked them, though. I’ll just have to keep an eye on the couple I couldn’t if I still can’t when I go out again.”

“That’s still _worrisome_ , Derek,” Stiles insists. “We don’t know what’s out there. We don’t have all the protection we could. You’re a lone werewolf out in bumfuck nowhere—okay, fine, yes, we’re right outside a city,” Stiles admits when Derek gives him a look, “but all of the friendly werepeople are back in California, and it’s not like their super running skills are going to get them here fast enough to save our asses if anything happens. Also? I’m still human here, and I _don’t have any weapons_.”

Derek looks thoughtful. “That steak knife is still in the kitchen.”

“Wow,” Stiles offers. “Throwing that back in my face. I thought you said you’d protect me when I tried to acquire the knife before.”

“I will. That’s not a question.”

“But you want me to grab the steak knife and sleep with my fist curled around it just in case you snooze through some potential break in that could quite possibly end in my cold-blooded murder.”

One of these days, Derek’s eyes are going to get stuck mid-roll, and Stiles is going to _laugh_. “For God’s sake, Stiles. I’d wake up if I heard something. Supernatural, remember? It comes with a lot of perks, and sleeping fully through the night is not one of them.”

“But you still want me to take the knife.”

“Yeah, because it has the possibility of _shutting you up_.”

Stiles presses a hand over his heart, mouth open in only slightly mocked offense. “Ouch, Derek. That wounds my soul.”

“You’ll live.”

“In suffering.”

“You’ll live.”

Begrudgingly, Stiles resorts to taking another sip of his coffee. Derek, of course, was right, but that doesn’t mean Stiles has to admit it.

\---

After knocking back a couple cups of coffee each, Stiles grants Derek momentary reprieve from researching to go out and check the wards again, mostly because he doesn’t want to die in his sleep, but also because he’s hungry and he wants to eat breakfast—a thing Derek apparently doesn’t do.

He saves him some eggs anyway, after he’s finished shoveling his fair share down his throat, just in case Derek changes his mind, because, really, who skips _breakfast_? Heathens, that’s who.

When Derek gets back, though, he only glances at the plate of eggs Stiles left on the counter next to his half-empty coffee cup. Stiles doesn’t let the rejection hurt his feelings.

“They’re not back up, are they,” Stiles more says than asks Derek while he huffs and wipes his face with yet another disgusting rag he found god knows where. Seriously, _ew_. How does that not bother him?

Derek shakes his head, moving to drop the rag on the counter, but Stiles is faster and snatches it from his grip, glaring. Derek only returns with a confused look.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” admits Derek, following behind Stiles as he locates the laundry room and deposits—well, throws, rather roughly—the dirty rag onto the floor. If he ever got his hands on laundry detergent, those rags, wherever they were being hidden, would be the first to go. Twice.

“You said there were ley lines nearby, right?” Stiles asks. He maneuvers around Derek, who’s taking up the entirety of the doorway, and returns to the kitchen to wash his hands. Derek follows behind like a lost duckling, but seems to catch sight of the eggs a second time in a new light, because he starts for them the moment Stiles has his hands covered in soap. “And that could be causing interference. But Deaton has nothing helpful to offer for that?”

Derek shakes his head, mouth full of eggs, then swallows. “Nope. That might be because we don’t know an ounce of magic between us that the wards would probably require in order to be put up, but he didn’t say anything, no.”

Stiles frowns. “The other wards didn’t require any magic?”

“They run on runes, I just had to carve them again to get them working.”

“Huh,” says Stiles, because most of his past efforts had been focused on beings and creatures of the supernatural breed. He made a mental note to start delving into more magical things, of the less animalistic realm. It might come in handy in the future. “I don’t know jack about magic.”

Derek only makes a noise of some sort, his mouth filled with eggs again, and Stiles accepts that.

“Well, once you’re done with those, we need to get back to researching.” Like, stat, because even though they did really, _really_ well last night, there’s still a fuckload of information to go through, and the sooner they get through it all, the sooner they can get back home.

Derek gives him a look, but it’s downsized significantly by the fact he’s got a fork in his mouth. Regardless, that’s clearly not what he wanted to hear. Tough luck, Stiles thinks. This is what they were there for, not gallivanting around the woods. That never solved anything.

Well, okay, it solved a lot of things, but this was a circumstance where it wouldn’t. Research was what would solve their issue, and Stiles wasn’t about to let Derek off the hook just so he could frolic among the trees for the remainder of the day.

“For a few hours,” Derek says once the fork is out of his mouth, and Stiles can feel a compromise coming on, whether he wants it or not. Annoyed, Stiles crosses his arms and leans his hip against the counter, watching Derek through narrowed eyes. “I want to take you to see the broken sections of the wards.”

Okay, that has Stiles’ interest. He relaxes a minute amount and tries not to look _too_ interested. “Why? I can’t fix them.”

“Maybe not,” Derek agrees, “but you’re the smart one. You might be able to think of another way around the issue I’m having.”

Stiles basks in the compliment for a bare moment, aware Derek is smirking at him. Knowing Stiles since he was sixteen had to pay off somehow, right? Knowing how to get his attention and keep it, a feat within itself, was an obvious perk.

“Alright, fine,” Stiles amends. “I’ll help. After we get those few hours of research in, clear?”

Derek smiles that wolfish smile of his, all teeth and attractiveness. Stiles feels his heart beat just a little too hard, because even _he’s_ not immune to it. “Crystal.”

\---

The couple hours of research go by as promised, but Derek’s antsy attitude throughout the whole thing only irks on Stiles’ ADHD, and they don’t get quite as much done as he would have hoped. They get _something_ done, at least, and Stiles counts that as a win, even if Derek nearly rips the highlighter from his grip the moment the clock ticks into two hours past what time they’d started at. Stiles huffs and grumbles throughout the entire process of getting up and changing into normal clothing and lacing up his sneakers, but he doesn’t get a chance to do much more once they’re out the door, because Derek is once again threatening to leave him in the dust, and Stiles needed that energy and oxygen if he wanted to stand a chance.

“I thought you wanted me to go along!” Stiles complains the moment Derek slows down to check on him, already huffing and resisting the need to clutch at his knees. “You didn’t say anything about _running_!”

Derek laughs, amused. “Sorry, sometimes I forget it’s harder for you to keep up.”

Stiles flips him off, but it only makes him chuckle again. All the same, he does wait for Stiles to recover from the first sprint, and he doesn’t pick up the pace once they get going again. It’s more of a loping walk he adopts, one Stiles can keep up with much easier, and it’s not long before Stiles starts chattering to fill the silence.

“And, sometimes, you know she can be really, really right about it?” Stiles continues along, having started the conversation with something Scott had said one day at school and merging somehow into something Lydia had said, because that’s just how conversations with Stiles went sometimes. “So, like, I understand _why_ she thinks it’s necessary to go along with this, but Scott, he’s got too many other issues around to really worry about it. He wants to be a vet, y’know? Not a … whatever it was Lydia said. But neither of them want to listen to me, even when I’m totally ready to throw down some numbers and maybe even a chart to show that _I’m_ right here!” Stiles flips his hands up in exasperation, then flings them back down to his sides. Derek watches him as they walk, completely amused by Stiles’ problems, maybe because they’re your typical high school teenager problems and have nothing to do with killing someone or fixing a supernatural and potentially extremely lethal issue.

“I really don’t think that’s—” Derek starts, snickering, then stops abruptly, nearly choking on his words as the air around them changes sharply.

The next thing Stiles knows, he’s being thrown to the ground and stood over by a wolfed-out Derek. The air is knocked from his lungs and he wheezes, scrabbling over dead pine needles and leaves, while Derek throws a pretty threatening growl at whatever had spooked him. Stiles can’t really see yet, but from the returning noise, he can easily assume it’s another werewolf.

 _Great_. That’s just what Stiles needed.

It’s just as the werewolf—relatively young-looking, female—comes into Stiles’ line of sight that Derek’s suddenly not standing as hostilely over him, but Stiles is still too focused on getting his breath back to give that revelation thought before Derek’s moved on.

“Eliza?” Derek says, surprised. He drops his hunched, defensive stance and stands up, his brow receding back to normal. The female werewolf blinks, then mimics him. “Hale? Holy shit.”

Stiles watches the both of them from his position on the ground, head spinning from the sudden turn of events and mentally incapable of deciphering what was now going down in front of him. He had appreciated the instinctive motion of protection from Derek, but being thrown onto the forest floor was never high on Stiles’ want list. And _that_ had happened fast, too. Stiles had barely had the time required to blink.

“What are you doing here?” the female—Eliza, apparently—continues, disbelief that followed the realization building in her voice. “I thought you had relocated back to California. Are you switching back again? Is Laura with you?”

At the last question, Eliza tilts her head as if sniffing the air, her eyes bright with what Stiles figured was excitement. If the question hadn’t decidedly turned his stomach, he might have had the curiosity to wonder how well Derek must know her, and if she had known the whole Hale pack.

The silence that met her question was resounding. Derek breaks it a moment later, but not before both Eliza and Stiles had turned their attention onto him, the former curious and the latter just coherent enough to wince, “No.”

The air around them stills, then Eliza’s face crumples with disbelief, catching on immediately to Derek’s tone. “No,” she murmurs, covering her mouth with a hand. Stiles feels a band tighten around his chest. Derek doesn’t move. “Oh, Derek. I’m so sorry.”

Stiles takes this moment to pick himself up off of the ground, brushing a few leaves off his jeans and sneaking glances at Derek’s face, trying to gauge him without being disgustingly obvious he was worried. Though Derek’s face wasn’t as impassive as it could have been, he didn’t look _upset_ at having to share this knowledge. Just … unhappy. Maybe Eliza and Laura had been close.

“This is Stiles,” Derek says suddenly, throwing Stiles completely off guard and directing Eliza’s attention onto him. Derek turns to look at him, too, but Stiles is too disoriented by the change in topic to do more than blink stupidly.

Introductions? Way to leeway the conversation, Derek. Stiles finally manages to raise his hand in awkward greeting, but Eliza is still too shocked by the news of Laura’s demise to look all that interested in the fact Stiles had a name. She did, however, manage to catch onto the fact he was definitely _not_ a member of Derek’s werewolf pack, whoever that might have consisted of in the first place.

“He knows about us?” she asks, her hand still curled near her mouth. She sounded—not appalled, exactly, but undeniably disapproving. “He’s not even an Omega. He’s _human_.”

Well, Stiles was offended. What was it with supernatural people and the need to talk about humans like it was an insult to be one? Maybe Stiles just really enjoyed being weak and slow and breakable. Not like it was anyone else’s business regardless. Sheesh.

“Long story,” Derek dismisses, “but he does know, and he’s a useful human. He’s— _We’re_ here looking for information on sprites, actually. The East coast has problems with them enough that we thought coming here would help us with our own infestation, but it hasn’t really fleshed out like we’d hoped.”

Eliza nods, like this made sense. “You’ve been using public records to look?” she asks, and both Derek and Stiles nod to affirm. “Yeah, you won’t find the best information there. They leave a lot of the otherworld issues here to the packs, so we’ve got the most—and best—information on them. Those files are in our bestiary,” she says, and Stiles flashes Derek the most triumphant look he could manage. See, his expression says haughtily, bestiaries are a _thing_. Derek ignores him.

“Great,” says Derek, mood improving significantly, “could we have access to it?”

“Yeah, Claire won’t mind.” The blind praise in her voice spoke volumes. Claire was obviously Eliza’s Alpha. “Give me a couple days and I’ll bring it by. Same house?”

But Derek frowns. “A couple days?” he repeats, confused. “Is there trouble around?”

“No, no,” Eliza says hastily, almost too hastily, “the pack relocated to Maine. It’ll take me a couple days to get there and back. You didn’t smell the stale marks?”

To Stiles’ immense surprise, Derek blushes. “I haven’t gone beyond my own territory yet. Some of our wards were down, and I’ve had,” he coughs, like he was tripping over his words, “trouble fixing them. Why Maine?”

“Casey married into a pack from there and we wanted to live closer for the benefits, plus there weren’t any good reasons to stay around since it was dying land here. _Trouble_ fixing your wards?” asks Eliza, clearly not willing to let the subject drop. Derek winces, looking a little helpless.

“There’s some sort of interference, yeah,” he admits, slowly, and Stiles looks on in a combination of wonder and near-glee. He’s _never_ seen Derek like this before. Even teenage Derek had better control at all times, where was _this_ coming from? “I mean, I don’t know anything about magic, really, and Stiles isn’t a warlock or whatever, so.” Derek shrugs, but Eliza starts nodding, mostly to herself, it seems, her hand on her chin and her eyes on the floor of the forest.

“Simple runes alone aren’t working?” she asks, and Derek confirms it.

“The coffee also froze this morning,” Stiles adds, but neither of them pay him any attention.

“There have been weird magical disruptions around this area,” Eliza says absentmindedly. “That’s why I’m down here. They’ve hit a surge recently and we come down periodically to check the area out and make sure the source hasn’t decided to show itself.”

For the first time since he had pushed Stiles on the ground to defend him, Derek glances back and gives Stiles a look of pure alarm. “That’s why the wards won’t go up?”

“I _told_ you Deaton was being too dismissive about it!” Stiles feels his heart skip more than once in panic as realization gives him a firm smack in the face. “And I’ve been sleeping on the _couch_!”

“You’re making him sleep on the couch?” Eliza questions Derek in half-amusement, her lips curling. Derek ducks his head.

“Not _anymore_ ,” Derek replies, clearly annoyed at how much Eliza—whomever she was to him—was learning about their predicament, then grabs Stiles’ sleeve gruffly and gives it a sharp tug. “We need to go back. Those areas are still open.”

Stiles pulls his arm back before Derek could commence dragging. “So? You can’t do anything about it. There’s no rush to go back to an area just as unprotected as the one we’re standing in now when you can’t do anything about it. Can _you_?” Stiles asks, turning to Eliza.

Eliza shakes her head. “Wards aren’t my specialty. When I go for the bestiary, I’ll bring Mike back with me. He’s always been the resident handyman with that kind of stuff.”

“Great.” Derek nods, hand back on Stiles’ sleeve. “Thanks, Eliza.”

She flashes them a smile full of teeth. It sends the slightest of shivers down Stiles’ spine. “Anytime, Hale. I’ll be back before you know it.”

\---

“I really don’t see the point of changing the locks,” Stiles mumbles, fingers sore from holding the lock in place in the doorframe for so long while Derek screwed it in place. “If it’s magic disrupting the wards, I highly doubt metal locks are going to deter anything capable of breaking something like that.”

Derek grunts, giving the screw another epic twist with fluid wrist movements. “We don’t know _what_ is the source of the magic, right?”

“Right.”

“So, to play it safe—” Grunt, twist. “—we’re switching locks.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The locks we had before were brass and copper. These are pure iron. So’s the door handle, and the window frames.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, catching on after a beat. “That’s actually pretty clever.”

Derek only grunts in response, the screwdriver shoved between his teeth—also gross, seriously, who knows where that’s been, and it’s not like Stiles is _that_ much of a germaphobe—and his hands busy realigning where the lock is fitting in.

“So you think it’ll be something fairy-related?” Stiles asks after a minute. “Or, whatever else doesn’t like iron? What else doesn’t like iron,” he asks, to himself. “Now I’m wishing I’d brought _my_ bestiary.”

“I don’t know _what_ the hell’s doing this, Stiles,” Derek says, somewhat exasperated, once he’s removed the screwdriver and released the lock. Stiles drops his hands, too, and admires the fairly plain new addition to the door. “But I’d rather be safe.”

“Good plan,” agrees Stiles, dusting his hands together. “Speaking of safe, where am I sleeping tonight?”

Derek looks up at Stiles from his position, crouched on the ground with his arms resting on his knees, and frowns deeply. He probably doesn’t want Stiles in his parent’s room, because disrupting their things post-mortem makes even Stiles uncomfortable, and Laura’s and Cora’s room is also probably still off-limits, so that leaves …

“You’re sleeping on the floor,” Derek declares, just as Stiles reaches his mental conclusion. He makes a noise of offense, one Derek ignores.

“You’re not abandoning me to the cold, hard floor, Derek,” Stiles protests. “That’s horrible hostmanship!”

“That’s not even a word, Stiles.”

“It is now! Let me stay in the bed, come on! I sleep with Scott all the time, and his bed’s probably smaller!”

Derek makes a face, but Stiles knows it’s all for show. “Not like _that_ , asshole,” Stiles clarifies anyway, and Derek smirks. He stands up, just about matching Stiles in height, though he’s still got bulk where Stiles doesn’t. Stiles is willing to give it a couple more years—maybe he’ll fill out.

“I guess I can think about it,” Derek amends, wiping his hands on his shirt. “If I wake up to you snuggling me, though, I’m kicking you onto the floor.”

Uh oh. “I’ve been known to be an avid sleep-snuggler, I don’t think that’s fair to use against me when I can’t help it,” says Stiles, holding his palms out matter-of-factly.

“And I can’t help it if my first reaction to waking up snuggled is to throw the offense onto the floor.”

“That is definitely not your first reaction to it, don’t bullshit me.”

But Derek only raises an eyebrow at Stiles before retreating into the house, and Stiles is left to ponder the idea of spending the night on the floor after all, if only for his own physical safety.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it, okay? Just fuck it. 
> 
> I'm trying to do Camp NaNo, but I'm writing this instead. Hell, I'll probably have the entire thing done and posted before long, at this rate.
> 
> Also: This isn't a very long chapter, but that's because the chapter that follows it is SO long, and I'm not even done writing it yet, so the actual length is TBD. It's long, though. Promise. This one? Not so much.

They spend the rest of the night researching well into the early hours of the morning, but quit before they reach the same point of passing out that they had the night before. Well, Derek quits, but only because Stiles is the one who falls asleep first, nearly face-planting the passage he’s working on when exhaustion overcomes him. He’s woken by Derek shaking his shoulder before he can drool on the research and guided to bed, already in his pajamas thanks to good pre-planning and experience. He doesn’t remember much past climbing into bed, but he does know he sleeps extremely well that night.

Stiles wakes up the next morning on what he’s pretty sure is the other side of the bed that he started on, but he’s not on the floor, so he can’t be sure if he didn’t accidentally cuddle Derek like he had warned he might do. He’d outright ask if he did at all, but …

Derek is not in bed. He’s not in the room, either. He might be downstairs, but if he is, he’s not doing anything loud enough for Stiles’ human ears to pick up on.

Stiles doesn’t feel the need to go looking for him, however, because, like he had thought, the beds were _glorious_. He could die on this mattress and be in the most comfort he’s ever been in his entire life, and that would make it completely okay with him. He doesn’t want to move right now, and nothing short of the house burning down— _yikes_ , Stiles thinks suddenly, _what the fuck, brain, not cool_ —would make him even think about getting out of this bed.

Stiles sighs, rolls over until he’s in the middle of the bed, and waits for Derek to come back. Because he has to come back up at some point, right? To make sure Stiles isn’t getting into things now that he’s on the second floor and of his own free will? Stiles decides he can wait for that moment to come, and buries his face into one of the pillows. He’s pretty sure he dozes off again, but when he rouses himself, he still doesn’t hear any signs of Derek moving about the house. Which means he’s either not moving around the house, or he’s just not home. Either way, Stiles is pretty sure he should at least _locate_ the guy. Just to make sure whatever had broken the wards wasn’t brutally murdering him, or something.

With a groan, Stiles pulls himself from the heavenly bed and sets off in search of the werewolf. His ears still fail to pick up on anything as he descends the staircase, clomping his feet just a little louder than necessary even though he knew Derek would be able to hear him normally, but realizes Derek is definitely out when he reaches the kitchen and finds a mug full of coffee and cream next to one filled only with dregs. Where Derek might have gone, Stiles isn’t ready to think about, and he focuses on consuming the coffee before he tries to venture down that road.

As it turns out, though, he never gets that chance, because he’s only halfway done with his coffee when Derek bursts into the house again and slams the door shut behind him. Stiles has a moment to wonder if he’s _angry_ before the werewolf in question peeks his head in and blinks, then huffs a laugh, most likely at Stiles’ sleep-ruffled state.

“Hey,” Derek greets, emerging fully into view and therefore making it obvious that he’d been out running around. He’s yet again shirtless, sweaty, and _wiping himself down with another godforsaken_ —that’s it. Stiles is done with this. Where is he even _finding_ them?

Stiles bangs his coffee cup down on the counter and takes the opening it grants him by startling Derek to grab the rag out of the man’s grip, pulling it fully away from both his person and from Derek’s hesitant attempt to grab it back.

“Where the hell are you _getting_ these things?!” Stiles more exclaims than asks. Derek continues to look surprised at Stiles’ outburst, eyes flickering between the rag Stiles has held up like a sacrifice and Stiles himself, whom probably looks just a little deranged.

“Uh,” he tries at first, then crumples into further mental incoherence. “Out back? In the toolshed, they’re—”

“The toolshed!” Stiles repeats, triumphant. “They’re getting annihilated. _Tonight_ ,” he declares.

Derek’s expression doesn’t change. “What?”

“These are disgusting, Derek!” Stiles waves the rag at him. “And you’ve been wiping your _face_ with them!”

Derek frowns, looks at the rag. “They’re not that bad,” he protests. “It’s mostly stains, and it’s not like I’m not going to shower anyway in—”

“They’re _gross_ ,” Stiles cuts in, because that was obviously the more important statement in this whole argument they were having.

“It’s just a towel, Stiles, it’s not like I’m walking around in dirty clothes.”

“It’s the _idea_ , Derek.”

Realization crosses Derek’s face. He nods, slowly, like he’s agreeing with whatever’s going on in his head. Stiles watches him in annoyance. “Care to share with the class, Mr. Hale?” Stiles says sardonically.

Derek’s eyes roll. “It’s that magical interference,” he says simply, and Stiles is completely lost immediately. “The cleaning?” Derek tries, “And the fact you’ve been extra twitchy? Don’t tell me you didn’t even notice.”

Of course he noticed. Stiles just hadn’t thought it was anything more than him being uncomfortable with being so far from California. He says as much, but Derek doesn’t accept it this time. “No,” he says. “This is too much, even for you. You’re not reacting well to whatever magic is being put out around here. Not that I’m complaining,” he adds, flashing a smile. “I’d rather have it clean around here than dirty, but I wasn’t going to do anything if it was only going to be for a week.”

Stiles glowers. “So whatever’s causing all this bullshit is also turning me into a neat freak. Great.”

“Pretty much, yeah. It’ll wear off once we’re out of here.” Derek reaches for the rag again, but Stiles raises it out of the way. Derek snickers, but he doesn’t try to reach for it again. “We’ll get you some detergent to clean those later, if you want.”

“I want,” Stiles confirms. “But we have to research some first. We’re getting pretty far into it, and it’ll all supplement whatever Eliza’s bringing for us.”

It’s Derek’s turn to glower, and he doesn’t disappoint. “I wouldn’t have been doing nearly this much if you hadn’t come along, you know.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, walking away to deposit the rag with the others, “that’s the point.”

\---

They get their designated research done, but not until after Derek’s had his (seemingly longer than normal) shower and forced Stiles to take one, too. Stiles knows it’s just because Derek doesn’t want to get started on the work, but he humors him because, honestly, he doesn’t want to venture out after with wet hair, and sitting at the coffee table pouring over paper and neon markers is the perfect way to allow his hair time to air-dry. He drips a little on the paper when he sits down to start, but he decides it’s better than him drooling on it again.

“I want to go out to the wards again,” Derek says, flipping his highlighter between his fingers.

Stiles scowls. “No, I want to go to Target. I want that detergent, dammit, you can go frolicking while I do the laundry, but not before.”

“Fine,” says Derek as he leans back and props himself up on an elbow, highlighter still spinning around. “Let’s get going to Target, then.”

Stiles stops highlighting the passage he’s reading, irritated. Derek’s like a child. “You wouldn’t be acting like this if Lydia were here,” Stiles accuses, watching Derek get immediately tired of his position and stand up, most likely so he can move Stiles along.

“If Lydia were here, she’d be doing all of this herself,” Derek counters, pulling his shirt back down over his waistband. “If Lydia were here, we’d probably already be back in California.”

Stiles huffs, recapping his highlighter and setting it on the paper. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be geniuses, can we?”

Derek gives him a look. “Clearly,” he says, then tosses his highlighter onto the table.

Stiles nearly makes a noise of offense, but Derek’s out of the room before the idea actually occurs to him. Because Derek is right, of course. But that doesn’t mean Stiles has to _like_ it.

Still, he makes the noise the moment he’s in the car, because he wasn’t going to let the idea of it go to waste. Derek gives him a confused look.

“That was for the insult you left me with at the table,” Stiles clarifies as he buckles his seatbelt, and Derek only shakes his head in bemusement.

The drive is quick, now that they know where they’re going, and relatively quiet, because Stiles is focused on texting Scott some details about New York, which Scott responds to jealously. They get the detergent and some extra groceries while they’re there, and Derek is out the door again the moment Stiles has the bags unloaded and put away. Stiles rolls his eyes at the guy’s eagerness, but leaves it be all the same. He has laundry to do, and a toolshed to ransack at that.

\---

It’s when Stiles is starting on his second load of dirty rags that he feels it, and he drops the armful he has in shock, doubling over and clutching at the corner of the washing machine.

A sharp, almost painful jolt of energy—or _something_ —surges through his body, starting from his head and encompassing him entirely before exiting as instantly as it came, leaving Stiles dry-heaving and holding onto the washing machine for dear life. His head spins with blank thoughts of astonishment, and he can’t move for what feels like forever. When he finally does, an impression of doom falls over him like a heavy blanket, and Stiles realizes with a start that something is _very wrong_.

Derek.

“ _Derek?!_ ” Stiles calls out in alarm, but no one answers him, because he’s alone in the house. Because Derek’s still out in the woods.

Derek’s still out in the woods.

Alone.

Stiles doesn’t give it a moment, not when he knows something has just happened—something bad, something very, _very_ bad, and Stiles is terrified he’s going to go out and find Derek in pieces on the forest floor. He has a disturbing flashback to the time he and Scott had found Laura’s body and physically cringes as he locates his shoes by the front door.

He only hopes he’s not too late, and that Derek hasn’t met a similar fate to his sister.

Feet crammed into sneakers and jacket left on the couch, Stiles tears out of the house and into the woods, calling Derek’s name as carefully as his panic allows him and hoping Derek can hear him. Hoping the other thing, whatever had caused the feeling that won’t go away, _can’t_.

“Derek?” Stiles hisses into the wind again, loping along the trees at a pace he knows he can maintain. He tries to remember the paths he had taken before, the ways to the busted wards and to the area where they’d met Eliza, but the trees all look the same. The area is too unfamiliar, and he can’t get his bearings when he can’t recognize anything. Twisting through the trees only gets him more lost, and Derek can’t be found. Stiles doesn’t know what time it is or how long he’s been looking for, but the feeling hasn’t left him, and he can’t help but sense he has just made a huge mistake.

Stiles curses, loudly, and stops long enough to punch a tree. Which, of course, hurts. A lot.

“Shit!” exclaims Stiles, holding his hand to his chest. The knuckles are scratched and one is bleeding, and Stiles considers that to be one of his stupider moves of the week.

“Stiles?” a voice questions, and Stiles knows instantly from the tone of “are you stupid?” in it that Derek’s found him and witnessed him punching the tree. He turns to the voice and, sure enough, there he is, giving Stiles a look he was almost scared he’d never see again. Then Derek catches sight of Stiles’ bleeding hand. “What are you doing?” he asks, alarmed, and he starts towards Stiles with an outstretched hand.

“Derek! Holy shit.” Stiles shakes his head, then starts to ramble. “No, wait, I felt something, I thought you’d gotten hit. Or hurt, or—god, killed, maybe, Jesus, it was a big surge. I came out here to look, but I couldn’t find you, so I thought—You look fine, though, so good job on not getting blown to smithereens. Where were you?”

Derek stares, then reaches out and clasps a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. The feeling subsides just a little, replaced only by the relief Stiles realizes he hasn’t felt, despite finding Derek alive and well. “Stiles,” Derek starts, “Slow down. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. What happened?”

Right. Coherence. That was a necessity. Okay.

Stiles takes a breath, then tries again. “I was doing the laundry and I felt—I guess it was residual or something, but I felt this big shock. Or, like, zap. I don’t know. Like static electricity? I guess that’s a good way to describe it. I felt it, and I thought—I thought—” Stiles chokes on the words. He can’t finish his sentence, suddenly, too overwhelmed with the memory of how it had felt.

The growing alarm in Derek’s expression confirms Stiles’ fears. “Crap,” Derek says eloquently, then pulls Stiles close, and the next thing Stiles understands is that Derek is giving his hair a big sniff.

“Whoa,” Stiles says, pulling away. “Little close there, buddy. Why are you sniffing me?”

“Ozone,” Derek explains without an ounce of humility. His hand’s still firmly on Stiles’ shoulder. “You smell like ozone.”

Stiles blinks. “And that means?”

“ _Magic_ , Stiles.” Derek glances around, concern etched into his expression. “It means the magic that was—cast, performed, I don’t know—you were affected by it. It went _through_ you, I think, from how you smell.”

Okay, what?

Now Stiles is alarmed. Again. Severely. “ _What?_ ” he exclaims, shoving Derek’s hand off so he can take a step away, fearful it might happen again and Derek will get hit with it, too. “What the hell does _that_ mean?!”

“I don’t know!” Derek says in frustration, his rejected hand falling to his side. “But it’s obviously not good. Whatever this thing wants, it’s messing with you while it’s around. You need to go back home.”

That throws Stiles through a loop, and he blinks as he tries to comprehend what it was Derek had just declared. “ _Excuse me_?” he asks, because he _must_ have heard Derek wrong.

“It’s not safe here for you,” Derek says, without patience. He grabs Stiles’ arm and starts pulling him away. Back to the house, Stiles thinks, but doesn’t accept it.

“Um, no.” Stiles stops, then digs his heels in when Derek continues to pull. He lets go when he realizes Stiles is actively resisting and levels him with a glare. “I’m not leaving you here alone, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I need to stay here,” Derek argues. “We need the bestiary.”

“So we can go back after we get it.”

“No, _I_ can go back after we get it. You’re going home, as soon as I can book a flight.”

“No, I’m _not_ , Derek,” Stiles says, and Derek looks like he wants to knock Stiles against a tree to make him see sense. It’s almost nostalgic, really. “It’s not safe for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for you. I’m not leaving you here _alone_.”

Derek makes a noise of frustration, and Stiles knows the argument is coming. “Stiles—” Derek says just as Stiles is saying, “Derek—”

A jingle cuts the both of them off, and Derek hesitates before pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and looking at the screen before answering it.

“Hello?” he answers, sounding a little confused, his frustration completely gone from his voice. Stiles frowns at him, raising his hands in a question. As if to answer Stiles, Derek says, “Scott?”

Stiles blinks in surprise, instantly fumbling around his pockets for his own phone, wondering why Scott chose to call Derek first instead of Stiles. His question is answered a moment later when he realizes he must have left his phone back at the house—and if Scott wasn’t waiting for Stiles to see and call back, then whatever he was calling with now must be urgent.

“Scott,” says Derek, bringing Stiles back to his attention. He sounds like he’s trying to cut Scott off from talking, meaning he was rambling about something and missing the point. “Calm down, Stiles is right here, and he’s fine. Here.” Derek holds the phone out, and Stiles looks at it a moment before accepting it.

“Scott? I’m fine, what’s wrong?” Stiles asks. He can hear the sigh of relief from Scott, and it only makes the worry he feels stronger. “What happened?”

“I thought something had happened to you, you weren’t answering your phone,” Scott says, sounding only slightly tinny from his place on the other side of the country.

“I left it back at the house. I would have called as soon as I got back.”

“I needed to know now that you were all right. I couldn’t wait that long—I didn’t know.”

“Why?” Stiles looks at Derek, and he looks just as concerned over Scott’s words as Stiles is. “Scott, back up. What the hell is going on?”

Scott hesitates, and Stiles can feel the dread coming before Scott even opens his mouth again.

“Lydia screamed, Stiles," Scott says solemnly. "Lydia screamed for you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for alcohol and underage drinking (by US law, not worldwide, Stiles is 18). I believe that is all the warnings for this particular chapter, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> Oh, yeah, and there's another gratuitous OC that won't be featured again. Plot needs moving, what can I say.

The argument they have over Stiles staying has the potential to be epic, but it basically halts in full the second Stiles tells Derek that he’s eighteen and he’d only fly back the moment he could even if Derek somehow managed to get him on the flight back to California in the first place. Derek points out that Stiles wouldn’t be able to when Scott, Lydia, and anyone else in on the whole debacle is on Derek’s side and _doesn’t_ want him in New York, but Stiles claims the power of friendship would overcome the trial. He also mentions that he’d probably end up with Scott, if not everyone else, in tow along with him when he returned if he did get sent back, which clearly makes Derek hesitate just the slightest of amounts before claiming it wouldn’t matter to him—he likes Scott. And Lydia. And Malia.

He only hesitates once in his claim, so it’s almost convincing.

The fact Deaton contacts them the moment he gets wind of Lydia’s scream and sets them up for a meeting with the resident Druid in New York City doesn’t hurt anything, either, but Stiles is too stubborn to accredit his winning in full to it. Or the fact that it’s what actually stops the argument before it can go big. Whatever.

Regardless, Derek remains wholly unsettled and fairly upset by the fact Stiles is staying in New York, and Stiles is growing annoyed with how much closer Derek chooses to stay to him since the incident with the magic—and it’s only been two days.

Sure, he’s had one more incident since then, when he nearly upended the entire coffee table in his attempt to hold onto it while the jolting feeling seized all his muscles up and subsequently gave Derek a heart attack in panic, but it was only once, and he recovered from it just as fast the second time as he had the first, but, still. Derek is being too cautious about this, and, wow, is it grating on Stiles’ already-fragile nerves.

“Can’t you just go for a run or something?” Stiles asks as he stirs the pasta they’re having for dinner. It wasn’t cleaning, so it didn’t sooth the twitch he now perpetually had whenever he wasn’t actively mopping up or wiping something, and the looming thing Derek was doing just beyond his shoulder was getting on Stiles’ nerves. Immensely. “You’re acting like a helicopter parent, and we both know you’re not exactly apt at any sort of child-rearing.”

Derek blinks rapidly, then turns away, and Stiles immediately feels bad. “Okay, that one was low, sorry,” he apologizes, setting the spoon aside and covering the pot with a lid.  Derek only shrugs. “No, really. It’s the magic, making me a dick. Well, okay, _more_ of a dick. My capacity to be a dick is always pretty high, but now I’m just …” he trails off, and Derek picks it up with, “A big dick.”

“Yes,” Stiles agrees, clapping his hands together. “That. Exactly.”

“I’m still not thrilled you’re here,” Derek grumbles, fumbling with a hand towel Stiles had hung next to the sink. “I think you should go back, where it’s safe.”

“Yes, Derek, I can clearly see that. That doesn’t mean you have to hover over me like you’re constantly doing.”

“I don’t want to wander off and then find you—”

“You _stayed in bed_ this morning, staring at the ceiling. Doing nothing while I was sound asleep and _completely fine_.”

“I’d left my phone on the coffee table. There wasn’t anything to do but wait.”

“That’s my point,” Stiles replies, throwing his hands up. “You could have gone downstairs and gotten it, but, no, you stayed up there with me latched onto your pecs like—Which, why didn’t you kick me off? You’re not going to kill me just by throwing me off the bed, for god’s sake. Kick me off!”

Derek looks away sheepishly, and maybe a little disgruntled. “I’m just worried, okay. I don’t want to have to bring you home in a body bag.”

 _That_ gets Stiles, and he stumbles over his own argument. He doesn’t even want to think of what his dad would be like if he had to pick up his son from the airport in a box.

“And,” Derek continues, bringing Stiles’ attention back, “you weren’t really cuddling me. You were just kind of lying there.”

“I was touching you, wasn’t I?”

Derek’s expression darkens, and Stiles smiles. “Kick me off next time. _Please_. It won’t trigger anything, I’ve smashed my face on the lid of the washing machine enough times to know nothing happens unless the outside source is active, or around, or something. Whatever it is it does when I get that static electricity. It’s not _me_ , so _kick me off_.”

“Push,” Derek says quietly after a minute, with something like relief in his voice. “I’ll _push_ you off.”

“ _Thank_ you, Jesus. Despite my inability to refrain from glomming onto others in my bed while asleep, I don’t actually enjoy snuggling up to unwilling participants. I’m just used to sleeping with Malia, who’s all for it.”

Derek makes a face. “Thanks, Stiles,” he says sarcastically. “That’s a mental picture I really wanted.”

“Hazard of knowing me,” Stiles replies simply. “What time did Deaton say we had to meet that Druid? Nine?”

“Around then, yeah,” Derek confirms, then takes his phone out like he wasn’t sure if he was right. “I don’t know where this club is, though, so I want to leave earlier. We might need the spare time.”

“This is going to be awesome,” Stiles says excitedly, hopping up onto the counter. “I’ve never been to a New York night club before.”

“You’ve never been to New York, Stiles.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“You know they’re not going to let you drink, right?” Derek warns him. “This one is open to minors, but they card you at the door.”

Stiles waves his hand dismissively. “Whatever. I’m still excited to go to one. Scott’s going to be _so_ jealous.”

Derek makes a noise of exasperation, but Stiles doesn’t miss the look of amusement he wears before he turns away and Stiles is left to finish making their dinner in blissful solitude.

Once dinner’s done with, Stiles thinks excitedly, it’s _go time_.

\---

The club? Is _awesome_. Stiles can feel the energy it gives off before it even comes into view, the pounding of the music vibrates in his chest the moment the bouncer lets them in—once they’ve given Derek a once-over and Stiles a set of X’s on the backs of his hands, to mark him as underage. It makes him feel like he belongs in a 3OH3 song, even though he knows these won’t wash with plain water. He’ll talk Derek into getting him a drink anyway.

They push through the people crowding just inside and find themselves in a large open area filled with twisting masses of people in all the colors Stiles could name, and a shitload he couldn’t. There are outfits of all kinds, and it vaguely reminds him of the parties and clubs he’d gone to back home, when he’d had the time to experience being a teenager with a mild side-issue of having werewolves for best friends. He misses that time, just a little.

“I think we’re under-dressed,” Stiles yells to Derek, who shoots him a look that says, “And why should that bother me?” Stiles opens his mouth to yell again, but Derek slaps a hand over it, and Stiles can only grunt into the flesh in surprise.

“I can hear you without the yelling, Stiles,” Derek says once he’s leaned in close enough—because maybe he can hear, but Stiles certainly can’t. It’s too _loud_.

Derek pulls away and straightens his leather jacket, something he’d adopted once again upon deciding what to wear to the event. Stiles, being a broke high-schooler and only equipped with what he’d brought with him, had opted for his favorite Henley and a pair of jeans. If there were others in this club dressed like the two, Stiles couldn’t see any of them. It was nothing but designer jeans, cutoff shorts, and too many types of glittery fabric to name. He’s pretty sure the girl who just walked past was only in her underwear, but staring at her didn’t seem to remedy his incoherence.

He ends up having to be pulled back to his feet by Derek when someone knocks into him, who he doesn’t see coming because he’s too busy staring. He gives Derek a sheepish smile of thanks, and Derek only rolls his eyes and walks further into the crowd, allowing Stiles to follow in the wake he leaves behind.

“Who exactly are we even looking for?” Stiles asks, trying his best to keep his voice at a normal volume despite the instinct to shout. He looks left and right as he trails Derek, but everyone looks the same in the cycling rainbow of lights. “What does the Druid look like?”

Derek shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything. Stiles assumes this is because of the volume and Stiles’ lack of werewolf hearing. Regardless, the fact they don’t even know who they’re looking for poses a problem, and Stiles grabs the back of Derek’s jacket and drags him over to the side, where the bar is and the music is a little lower. Derek doesn’t even look affronted by being manhandled, just mildly irked. He crosses his arms and leans against a clear section of the bar while Stiles scrubs his face.

“We don’t know who we’re looking for?” Stiles asks Derek incredulously. “How the hell are we going to do this if we don’t know anything to look for? There’s tons of people here.”

“Deaton said they’d find us, and we just had to be here.”

“Deaton’s been a fucking flake recently, I don’t know how to feel about him and his words of guidance right now.”

Though Derek looks unhappy about this declaration, he doesn’t refute it. He waves away the bartender when they come over, and Stiles shouts, “Hey!” in protest. Derek gives him a funny look.

“Werewolf, Stiles,” he says by way of explanation.

“Not for you, Jerkface. I want a drink!”

“You’re not old enough to drink.”

“I’m not old enough to do a lot of things, but I do them anyway! YOLO, Derek!” Stiles quickly hides his hands in his pockets when the bartender slips by again to place a drink near where they’re standing. “Seriously. I could die tomorrow, and that’s not even an exaggeration. Get me a drink, please. Let me enjoy this night.”

The look Derek gives him is long and hard, but Stiles knows he’s won the moment he gives a big sigh and turns back to the bar. Stiles grins in triumph and mutters, “The girlier the better,” for Derek. He’s not sure if Derek hears him (though, he probably did), but he doesn’t get a chance to see what he’s being ordered because a bright pink drink is being shoved under his nose and garners his attention completely. Stiles recoils in surprise, bumping into Derek’s back. Derek only grunts and doesn’t turn around.

The drink is attached to a slim, dark hand, which is attached to a wildly attractive lady, whom winks at Stiles and deposits the drink in his hand, then wanders off before Stiles can even form a coherent thought, much less thank her for the drink. She must have heard the conversation he’d had with Derek, because there’s no way she missed the marks on the backs of Stiles’ hands.

Whatever. Stiles just got a free drink.

“Is this drugged?” he asks Derek unceremoniously when the werewolf turns around, cocktail in hand and surprised expression on his face. It immediately falls into one of suspicion.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, sounding like good old untrusting Derek.

“A lady gave it to me. Here,” Stiles lifts it up. “Sniff, does it smell like it’s been spiked?”

“You can’t just—” Derek starts, but cuts off when Stiles shoves the drink a little closer, insistently. Clearly annoyed, Derek frowns, but sniffs the drink, then declares it clean. Stiles gives a celebratory “Yes!”, then takes a big drink.

It burns, but it’s _good_.

“Do you want any?” Stiles asks Derek once they’ve moved from the bar and the direct line of sight of the bartender, holding the half-empty pink drink up. “It’s raspberry, I think. Pretty good.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to work on me.”

“For the taste then, come on.”

Derek blinks in hesitation, then accepts the drink. “See? I like it,” Stiles says once Derek’s sipped it. “Do you want the rest? I can drink that one,” he says, indicating the one Derek had ordered.

Derek only nods, then hands over the drink, sipping the pink one until the contents are drained. Stiles tries the other drink. It’s not as good as the pink one, but it’ll do. He’s too nervous to deal with his ever-growing tic, and, seriously. He really could die tomorrow. Might as well live.

Once the drinks are gone, Derek offers to throw the cups away and Stiles is left to his own devices, the music blasting and the people around him sweaty and writhing.

He loves it. He doesn’t want to leave.

“Is—Is this Ke$ha?” Derek asks, startling Stiles and looking up into the speakers like they could answer his question. The lights flash neon and his eyes light up like a beacon, his confused grin glowing blue in the black light. Stiles whoops, throwing his hands up, because he _likes_ this song. “I didn’t know people still listened to her. She was popular right after I was in high school.”

“Ke$ha never dies, Derek,” Stiles amends, slapping him on the back. A warm feeling is blooming in his gut, and suddenly he wants to _move_. “How embarrassed would you be if I went into the middle of that dance floor and had at it?”

Derek looks to where Stiles points and laughs, “Pretty embarrassed. Go for it, I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”

“Cool,” Stiles says, and then he’s throwing himself into the mass. It’s difficult at first, to move with all the other people around him, but, despite his lack of dance skills, the people accept him, and it’s not long before he’s moving with the group as a whole. When he breaks away some innumerable amount of songs later, panting and sweaty and hyped up on endorphins of excitement, he finds Derek standing right where he left him, chatting up a pair of girls who look like they’re not just interested in conversation.

Stiles watches him, unsure if he should break in while Derek’s actually socializing, when Derek glances up—probably something he’s been doing the entire time Stiles had been dancing, to keep an eye on him—and waves him over.

“Did you have fun?” Derek asks when Stiles ambles over. Stiles rolls his eyes, because wow, Derek, way to be a _parent_ , and grins.

“Yes, it was fucking awesome. You should try it.”

Derek makes a face that conveys that he wants nothing less than to do just that, but the girls squeal at the prospect.

“It looks like a lot of fun,” one of them says, glancing at Stiles before centering her eyes on Derek.

“It _is_ a lot of fun,” Stiles insists, ignoring the glare Derek gives him. Stiles nudges him with his elbow, Derek shoves him off. “Come on, Derek! Just one dance.”

“We’ll join you!” the other girl insists excitedly, only making Derek scowl. It doesn’t deter either of the girls in the slightest. Stiles grabs Derek’s arm and pulls. He’s met with resistance for a moment, but it doesn’t last, and Stiles is leading Derek onto the dance floor, the two girls close behind. As they’re moving around a pair of guys getting a little too PDA on the dancefloor for Stiles’ sensitive eyes, Stiles dares a glance back at Derek to gauge how much shit he’s in to find Derek glaring daggers of pure ice. A chill surges up Stiles’ spine and he quickly returns to watching where he’s going, stopping once he finds as secluded of a section as he can, which is maybe a little too close to the speakers when he catches Derek wincing. Stiles is about to start the pull again when one of the girls—the blonde one, he can see that now—grabs Derek by the elbow and starts trying to dance with him.

He stiffens in reaction, and Stiles tries to fight a laugh. Which warrants him another shot of the glare Derek has built up in Stiles’ name.

“Sorry,” he mouths, but he isn’t. Not yet, anyway, especially not when the second girl grabs his elbow and initiates dancing with him, to which he eagerly goes along with. He doesn’t know how long it takes the other girl to get Derek going, but eventually he comes to realize the four of them—five? Five, there’s another guy here, where did he come from?—have become one of the dancing groups that littered the rest of the dance floor, moving and dancing in a mass that doesn’t seem to have a beginning or an end, or any way of reason. Derek is definitely dancing now, his eyes closed and his fingers grazing the blonde girls’ hips, and it’s so _weird_ to see him like this that Stiles nearly stops what he’s doing to stare. To witness.

Would it be too much to risk a video? Sober Stiles might say yes, but slightly-drunk Stiles thinks it’s a brilliant idea, and later-Stiles would realize how damn lucky he was that they were so close to the speaker, because Derek probably would have noticed him recording otherwise and had a fit.

He gets video evidence, though, complete with Derek letting loose with not one girl, but also the guy who had appeared out of nowhere, and then the girl he’s dancing with once she’d realized Stiles was busy doing something else. He stashes his phone away as soon as his treasure is saved and dives back in, which is easy enough to do, because he melds in between the two girls without any misstep or lost beat.

A few songs switch around again and Stiles completely lets himself melt into the thrumming of the speakers and the feeling of the others dancing—and he’s so gone that it takes him a few moments longer than it takes Derek to realize that they’ve been abandoned by both girls and the random guy—who have fucked off to god knows where, because Stiles doesn’t see them _anywhere_ —and left to dance with each other. Derek’s hands immediately fall from where they’ve been cradling Stiles’ elbow and Stiles snaps his hands back to his own person hard enough to smack himself in the chest once he catches on.

Derek watches Stiles and Stiles watches Derek, and then they both burst out laughing—Derek with a huffy sort of chuckle and Stiles with guffaws that vibrate from his chest—and any potential awkwardness and tension is completely lost to the energy around them. With a hand gesture, Derek directs Stiles back to a quieter part of the club and pats Stiles on the back, still chuckling.

“This never leaves the club,” Derek tells him, voice chipper but undertone threatening. Stiles thinks of the video he has and decides it best not to ever mention it.

“What,” he says instead, smirking at Derek and leaning against the pillar they were conveniently situated near, “don’t want word of my awesome dancing skills getting out?”

Derek snorts, “You mean that spastic flailing you were doing back there?”

“Excuse me, those ladies—and that guy, wherever the hell he popped up from—seemed to think my dancing was pretty okay!”

“Uh huh. That’s why they ran away so quickly.”

“Hey!” Stiles says, offended. “Maybe it was because of you!”

Derek just looks at him, and Stiles glowers. “Alright, fine,” he amends sourly. “Not because of you. I still think I did okay.”

“Sure you did,” Derek says, but he’s still grinning in that way that Stiles knows he’s finding the whole thing hilarious, and not in a way that’s flattering to Stiles. Stiles grumbles, crossing his arms.

“Where the hell is this Druid?” says Stiles, still sour. “It’s, what, eleven now?”

Derek checks his watch. “Quarter to midnight,” he corrects. Stiles sighs, dropping his head back to rest against the pillar.

“We’re going to be here all night. At this rate, I’m going to need a few more drinks and another dancing partner.”

Derek gives him a confused look, but doesn’t say anything. “What?” Stiles pushes.

“Aren’t you dating Malia?” Derek asks, and it throws Stiles through a total loop. He’d forgotten how many things Derek had missed when he’d left, and his relationships, as messy as they were, were one of those things. Stiles grimaces, and he must look mildly upset, because Derek suddenly looks worried.

“Hey, you don’t have to—” Derek starts, but Stiles stops him by holding up his hand.

“It’s—No. I was going to say, ‘it’s complicated’ but, no.” Stiles sighs again and presses his palm to his forehead. “We’re a thing sometimes, but most of the time we’re not. We had an exclusive relationship at one point, but while she’s on her parent hunt and I’m over here, we just figured we’d let it go for now.”

At least, that was what Stiles was pretty sure was going on. Having a relationship with someone like Malia was confusing, to say the least, and he was beyond confused most of the time. He still slept with her, when she was around to be slept with and wanted him, but their actual relationship? Total enigma.

“So …” Derek drawls, “… she wouldn’t care that you just danced with two very attractive, very _older_ women at a night club in New York City?”

Stiles shrugs, because he’s pretty sure _no_ , but, again. Enigma. They’d definitively broken it off for this, so he was in the clear, but that doesn’t mean she’d be happy about it.

The thought depresses him immensely, and he slumps against the pillar, buzz completely gone.

“Sorry,” Derek says. Stiles looks at him, and he genuinely does look apologetic. “I killed your mood.”

“No,” Stiles argues with a sigh, “you were right to ask. I’m not the kind of skeeve to go cheating on his girlfriend, just a heads up, but it’s not like you were totally in the know on my relationship status. It was fair.”

Derek doesn’t look convinced. Stiles thinks he’s going to argue or something when he opens his mouth again, but, instead, he surprises Stiles by sharing his own information. “I’m there, too,” he says, and Stiles is thrown for a hot minute. “I’ve got that on-again-off-again thing going on with Braeden. It’s—She’s—” Derek tries, then shrugs and shakes his head. Stiles gets it. Maybe a little _too_ well.

“So you’re not a thing,” says Stiles slowly.

“Nope. Not really.” But he doesn’t seem as unhappy with it as Stiles does with his own, and Stiles wonders if that’s the age gap talking. If age will make it easier to deal with when he gets there.

If he’ll even have to deal with it when he gets there. Frankly, Stiles hopes not.

Silence, penetrated completely by the blaring music still around, falls between them, and Stiles breaks it before long with an apt, “Girls are confusing,” which gets Derek laughing again.

“Understatement, Stiles,” he says. Stiles smiles, and then frowns, startled, when he’s suddenly joined next to his pillar by a woman slinking up and curling her hand around his shoulder—the same one who had given him his drink hours before.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he splutters, flailing away. She grins at him, and then at Derek, who’s looking at her in confusion, then in suspicion.

“Are you the Druid?” he asks, sparking a slight panic in Stiles’ mind, because you don’t just go around asking people if they’re _Druids_ , Derek, holy _shit_. Thankfully, she grins wider. Meaning Derek hasn’t missed his mark. This time, anyway.

“At your service, Mr. Hale,” she says, her voice smooth and enticing. Stiles shakes his head, suddenly wishing he hadn’t had those drinks, even if she had been the source of one of them.

“Did Deaton tell you what we needed you for?” Derek continues while Stiles is preoccupied, clearly not up for beating around after they’d waited for her to show up for three hours. Three fun hours, sure, but still _three hours_.

She waves her hand, “Yes, Alan told me you needed some wards fixed. Are you getting involved with the little problem they’re having out there?”

“No. We’re trying to avoid that, actually. Keep whatever it is off of the property.”

“Then I’m your gal,” she says, her hand on her hip. Stiles takes a moment to notice she’s wearing wrecked jeans and some sort of leather top, and he tries not to think of what Deaton would look like if he dressed like her. Did Druids have a dress code?

What kind of question even was that?

“Great,” Derek says. “When can you come and fix them?”

“Tonight,” she tells them, and her smile is downright wolfish.

\---

“It’s midnight, Derek,” Stiles moans the moment they’re in their car again, the Druid—whose name neither of them got—following behind them in her own car. “No, it’s past midnight. I want to go home and _sleep_.”

“It wasn’t my choice, we have to go with what she wants, she’s doing us the favor,” Derek says, then frowns. “Did you just call it ‘home’?”

“Relative term,” Stiles dismisses, letting his head loll against the headrest. “The fact of the matter is that I’ve got a bed made by angels waiting for me and I won’t be in it for what’ll probably be at least another hour, and that is outright _blasphemy_.”

Derek’s lips thin. Stiles thinks he might be annoyed with Stiles’ complaining, but he doesn’t want to bother righting it. Not until he’s in a better mood.

“I should drop you off at the house anyway,” Derek finally says.

Stiles looks over at Derek without removing his head from the headrest. “What?”

“I don’t think I want you out in the woods this late at night.”

“What are you, my father?”

“No, but I’m _trying_ to _protect_ you.”

“You can’t protect me from everything, Derek,” Stiles says, because now he’s worried Derek’s going all Alpha on his ass, and the responsibility Derek puts on himself when he’s like that is _immense_. And totally unnecessary. And what tore him up emotionally the last time he let it happen. _Derek_ and _Alpha_ , the poor fucker, were not a good combination. “If something does happen to me, no one’s going to go blaming you, unless you’re the one wielding the knife, or whatever. So stop that whole thing right there, because it’s bullshit.”

That shuts Derek up, so Stiles keeps on speaking. “I’ll stay at the house while you escort the Druid-lady back there, _only_ because I really want to fucking sleep, but, man, not everything has to be on your shoulders, okay?”

Derek harrumphs, which Stiles takes to be in agreement, and they settle into silence for the rest of the way back to the house. Derek drops Stiles off, and Stiles barely gets his jeans off in exchange for a pair of cotton PJ pants before he’s collapsing against the bed and passing out.

The mattress shifting under the weight of Derek’s body rouses Stiles a while later, and he lifts his head up to blink wearily at the form he can’t really see.

“Are they up?” he slurs quietly, still half-asleep and watching as the black shadow that is Derek settles into his side of the bed.

“Yeah,” Derek replies softly, relaxing back. “She did some stuff I couldn’t follow, but she fixed all of them. Whatever’s out there, it can’t get in now.”

“Thank fuck,” Stiles says with relief. “Not a big fan of the whole jolting magic shit. Reminds me too much of when I was possessed.”

Derek goes quiet, and Stiles might fall back asleep, he’s not sure, but if he does, he’s woken once again by the time Derek’s speaking. “I’m sorry, Stiles,” Derek says, which confuses Stiles completely.

“For what?” he asks, because, seriously, what? His brain wasn’t up for this puzzle, and, with no immediate offense coming to Stiles’ mind, he can’t fathom what it is Derek’s sorry for.

“For what happened to you.”

Stiles’ head rolls against the pillow, eyes shut, facing Derek. “What happened to me?”

But Derek doesn’t answer, and Stiles falls back to sleep without a memory of the apology for him to keep into the morning.

\---

“I thought you didn’t eat breakfast,” Stiles says the next morning upon waking up to Derek making sausage in a frying pan. He’s seated on his favorite counter, coffee in hand, watching him.

“I don’t,” Derek confirms, then reaches over to shove a slice of toast—straight from the toaster—right into his mouth.

“So all of that is for me?” Stiles asks, pointing at the plate of eggs already done, the toast in the toaster, then at the sausage. “Because that’s a lot of food. Even for me.”

Derek glances at him before shoving a link of the sausage into his mouth, making Stiles twitch in just the slightest of amounts, because that was totally unhygienic. “Yup,” Derek says around the probably-scalding meat that doesn’t seem to faze him. “All yours.”

Stiles just looks at him. Then takes the remaining piece of toast before Derek can grab it, shoving it in his mouth with the maturity of a five-year-old. Derek raises his eyebrows, then shoves another sausage into his mouth, though with slightly more maturity than Stiles had used. While he chews, he plates the remaining sausage up and sets it next to the Stiles on the counter.

“I’ll be back,” he says, fingers already pulling for his shirt. Stiles is halfway into a link when he realizes he wants to know where it is Derek is going, but he doesn’t let that stop him. Derek spares him a mildly disgusted look when he has to witness the half-chewed contents of his mouth while he asks. “Run,” he explains. “And I know you don’t want to go, so, I’ll be back. Just leave the research on my part of the table and I’ll go through it when I’m done showering.”

Stiles makes some form of noise that vaguely resembles some form of agreement, which Derek accepts, and then he’s gone. From there, Stiles makes quick work of polishing off his plate and refills his coffee cup before embarking on some solo scanning and highlighting. Despite his constant protests, Derek had a knack for this kind of work, and he usually ended up waiting for Stiles to finish what he was working on, already being done with his own. Now that the wards are up, Stiles getting a head start seemed like the smartest way to go about researching.

It’s when he’s got a sizable stack accumulated on Derek’s side of the coffee table that Stiles realizes he’s been at the work a lot longer than he’d realized—which isn’t something he’d been capable of doing the entire time he’d been in New York. That alone doesn’t strike him badly, because he can accredit that to the new wards, and maybe the residual magic was only now wearing off. But the fact Derek isn’t back yet, despite enough apparent time to have passed for Stiles to get utterly lost in his work? No, that—that is weird.

Stiles tries a text first, because maybe Derek’s run into Eliza and is chatting her up and would ignore a call if it came in. Until twenty minutes pass and no response is given. Which, in this dire situation, with Lydia’s premonition in the air, is not a good sign.

The feeling of anxiety starts to bubble in Stiles’ gut as he picks up his phone to call Derek, then cures itself into mild panic when Derek doesn’t answer that, either.

“God _damn_ it,” Stiles hisses, locating his shoes and jacket and remembers to bring his phone this time as he shoots out the door. He still doesn’t have any idea how to navigate the woods, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.

He alternates between calling Derek on his phone and calling out for Derek as he treks around, wondering what the hell could have happened directly after the wards had all been fixed and were claimed to be fully-functional. None of his attempts come to fruition, and, finally, he decides he might need some help—before he freaks out while supposedly alone in foreign woods.

Pulling his phone out, Stiles taps around for Scott’s speed-dial. Scott picks up on the first ring.

“Stiles?” he answers, like he doesn’t have caller ID. If Stiles hadn’t been freaking out, he might have made a snarky comment along those lines. He opens his mouth, fully intending to tell Scott about Derek’s MIA status, but doesn’t manage to get that far in the process.

Instead, he chokes on his own spit when he’s grabbed by the shoulder and whirled around, finding himself face-to-face with a silver pendant of what looks like a howling wolf figure entrapped in an intricate star shape. There’s a hand on the back of his neck and the nails of whoever is pushing him down are digging into the soft skin painfully. Stiles only has a moment to wonder where the hell he’s seen that necklace before when something slams into his temple and he ceases thinking about anything at all.


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing Stiles thinks of when he comes to is that his pants are way too moist for his liking, and he’d really like to take them off. The second thing he thinks of is that he really doesn’t like having his hands bound behind him, because it prevents him from taking off his pants. The third, fourth, and fifth things then follow in a collision of sorts, and Stiles’ head instantly aches from the way they clatter around in his brain. They are, in rough order: _Wow that guy could really pack a punch_ ; _Couldn’t they have tied me up with silk string, or at least something that chafes less?_ and, then: _They must have tied me to a heater because there is some_ serious _back and butt crack sweat happening here_.

Stiles regrets them all equally.

He groans in pain and tries to press his face into the dry, dusty-smelling ground, then startles when his groan is echoed quietly from behind him. It’s at this moment that he remembers he’s in this ordeal in the first place for a reason, and he really, really hopes that reason is the thing he’s currently tied to, because it would be awkward otherwise.

“Derek?” Stiles tries carefully, quietly, more for the benefit of his own head than anything else. His thought process is seven or so steps behind the situation, and safety hasn’t managed to register just yet. “Please tell me that’s you.”

The overheating body in question doesn’t answer him, but Stiles feels his muscles contract as the hands bound up against his own clench and unclench in a steady rhythm. The body—Stiles is almost 100 percent positive it’s male because, despite being pretty svelte for a guy himself, this person is much broader in the shoulders than him and is clearly packing a lot in the muscle department, and Stiles is _pretty_ sure women can’t get that big. Unless it’s a girl on steroids. That could be a thing.

Was that politically correct? Stiles is fairly certain none of that mental-spew was, honestly, but he couldn’t really muster up a fuck to give. He was too busy trying desperately to hope it was Derek bound to him and not a large, buff female giving off way too much body heat to be healthy.

Or, you know, a guy Stiles didn’t know. Who wasn’t Derek.

… Jesus, how hard did that guy hit him?

It’s at this point Stiles has spiraled so far down his mental rabbit hole that he’s completely oblivious to the subtle sawing of a sharpened claw-like fingernail through the ropes that bound his hands. It’s not until the voice of the person behind him finally speaks that he comes out of the daze long enough to register what’s being said, and what the words even mean.

“I said, _move your hands_ ,” the voice—gruff, coarse, but most definitely Derek in need of a few lozenges—says with impatience. “I cut the rope.”

That, Stiles thinks, is a useful bit of knowledge. He slowly moves his wrists, feeling the rope lessen around them as he shifts, and tries not to think about how much it burns and stings. He couldn’t be sure how long he’d been tied up, but, between the sweat and the rough rope fibers, it’d been long enough to irritate the skin. Stiles winces when he tugs a little too hard, but he’s free, and he doesn’t give himself time to worry about the blistered and raw skin above his hands as he turns around to start working on Derek’s.

The knots, despite the copious amounts of rope, are shit, and Stiles gets Derek out of his within a minute of work.

“Where are we?” Stiles asks while Derek sits up and rubs his already-healing wrists. Derek looks furious, and Stiles couldn’t exactly blame him.

“I don’t know,” admits Derek as he looks around. “Some old building. It doesn’t smell familiar.”

Stiles gingerly touches the wounded skin with a fingertip, and then decides to never do it again when it throbs and sends a spike of pain up his arm. “What the hell was the point of knocking us out and kidnapping us?” Stiles asks, lowering his arms carefully into his lap. His jeans are still soaked through with sweat and it’s grossing him out. He wonders how inappropriate it would be to take them off like he’d wanted to earlier, before realizing his predicament. “Ransom?”

“No.” Derek clamps a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, and the now-constant throbbing of Stiles wrists eases in a heartbeat. He nearly melts into Derek’s arms. “I think they were after the emblem.”

Stiles just looks at Derek. “The what now?”

“Do you remember that disk I had?”

“Oh,” Stiles says, suddenly clicking into the memory. “ _Oh_ , yeah, you had it our first day here. They wanted _that_ thing? Why?”

“ _That_ thing,” Derek starts, without missing out on the chance to be disdainful, “is a very important, very old, very _powerful_ object. It went missing when Laura was killed, I think, but Peter thought it had burned up in the fire. But, when we got here, I found a note from Laura, and she told me where she had hidden it.”

“So, the witches want this emblem,” Stiles says, slowly. “For what reason?”

Derek shrugs. “Witches like old things with magical properties, I think it helps amplify their own abilities. Something as old as the Hale emblem probably is on the side of priceless.”

“And this is definitely not another trick like the one you pulled on Liam.”

“What?” Derek asks, confused, then understands a beat later. “No, that was bullshit. This is the real deal.”

“Great. So, they’ve managed to get past the wards, kidnap us and relocate us, and now probably have their hands on some super strong witchy Viagra, with which they just might obliterate us with once they come back?”

Derek’s face stresses into one of the usual expressions he wears when he doesn’t understand why Stiles is talking.

“I think they were inside the wards when they were sealed up, that’s how they got past them, but ...” Derek shakes his head. “No. I hid it again, and the Druid helped me seal it up. They shouldn’t be able to find it without me.”

That—That is _brilliant_. Stiles reaches out to clap Derek on the back and recoils with a yelp when it jars his wrist. Derek winces in turn, but doesn’t remove his hand from Stiles’ shoulder, still siphoning off the pain. Stiles smiles sheepishly in apology.

“Cool, so we don’t have to worry about that right now,” Stiles says as he looks around at the old, dusty area they’re in. It was creepy and echo-y and it smelled funny. The faster they got out, the better. “We should probably work on getting out of here.”

Derek nods in agreement and removes his hand, and Stiles braces himself for the returning onslaught of painful throbbing that immediately starts back up. He pulls himself to his knees and dusts his damp jeans off, while Derek starts to pull himself up from his knees, then stills entirely just as he’s pushing himself off the ground. The air around them is eerily silent, the light low and terrifying. Stiles freezes mid-swipe.

“Derek?” Stiles asks, alarmed. Derek looks up at him, and Stiles is horrified to find his face wolfed out.

“Fire,” Derek says simply, then launches himself to his feet and grabs Stiles by the shoulder of his jacket, hauling him up and immediately into motion before Stiles can even comprehend what it was Derek was even talking about. They burst out into a hallway, and realization hits Stiles like a truck.

Smoke fills the long room, pouring from doorways and out the gigantic glassless windows high up on the vaulted ceiling. This wasn’t regular fire, not with the way it was spreading so fast. Derek would have smelled it long before it reached this point if it had.

No, the witches are clearly trying to kill them, and they picked a pretty dick move way of doing it.

Stiles doesn’t get a chance to analyze anything before Derek’s yanking him in a direction opposite the smoke, Stiles fumbling on his still-half-asleep feet and choking on the polluted air. The way proves to only bring them to more fire, and Derek curses loudly, pushing against Stiles to back him up. He nearly falls, but Derek’s got his shirt not only fisted in his hand, but likely also snagged on his claws. Stiles decides he’s lucky he wore a shirt he wasn’t all _that_ fond of for this event, as it’s likely to come out of it in shreds.

“Shit!” Derek yells, and then Stiles finds himself being thrown onto the floor and covered by the werewolf just before a resounding BOOM nearly ruptures his eardrums.

“Are you _kidding_ me?!” Stiles screeches into the dirty floor. Derek says something in response, Stiles can feel his lips barely brushing against the skin of his exposed shoulder where his shirt had torn, where Derek had placed his face, but Stiles can’t hear what it is Derek says. His ears are ringing. There might be blood trickling down from one of them, but Stiles can’t move his arms to check.

Then, he’s back on his feet again, with Derek gripping under his armpit with a hold like a bear. Vertigo rushes in, and Stiles has to fight the sudden urge to empty his stomach in one swift, projectile motion. His vision swims. There _is_ something wrong with his ear, Stiles realizes just as his feet are suddenly slipping and his knees are meeting the floor with a jarring hit. Just as quickly, he’s swept up and over Derek’s shoulder like a fireman, and he has to clamp his hand over his mouth to keep from either screaming or vomiting as he’s jostled roughly against Derek’s back.

A cold breeze hits his ass, and suddenly he’s freezing. The change from the broiling heat of the fire just moments before shocks him, but not as much as the color green does when he opens his eyes and sees grass beneath Derek’s feet. The burning house, so much bigger and scarier than he’d expected, is twenty feet away. Stiles belatedly wonders if anyone’s called the fire department.

Derek slides Stiles off his shoulder. The sudden movement sends Stiles into another spiral of nausea and he hits the ground like a dead weight, first heaving, then coughing as the cold air hurts his damaged lungs. It takes him a long time—too long, he later things, too fucking long—to stop coughing long enough to realize Derek’s not standing over him like he’d been expecting him to be. His hearing’s come back some, and he can hear the distorted, distant sounds of the flames as they devour the house. He turns, and there’s Derek. On his knees, hands clenched and pressed into his eyes, canines pressing welts into his lip.

The sight startles Stiles into a semblance of clarity.

“Derek?” Stiles tries to call, but it comes out as a rasping squeak he can barely hear himself. He reaches out, touches his fingers to Derek’s forearm, and then screeches when a spark like an exposed wire zaps him.

_Magic_. The witches were doing something directly to Derek. What, Stiles couldn’t figure out, but it was tormenting Derek. As if burning him alive in a house on fire wasn’t enough—

Something snaps in the air, and Derek crumples to the grassy floor in a heap. Stiles, startled, hesitates before reaching out and attempting to touch him again, then immediately pulls himself to Derek’s side when no harm comes to him upon contact.

“Derek,” Stiles hisses, his voice still sounding like it’s filtered through molasses to his own ears. He grips Derek’s shoulders and pulls him up. Derek’s arms latch around Stiles as soon as he’s up, and Stiles finds himself face-to-neck with the were.

He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he does know they _need_ to _go_.

 “Derek,” Stiles chokes out again, throat clogged and sore from breathing in smoke and scorching air. He coughs, violently, and knocks his head into the shoulder he can’t pull away from, Derek’s arms like a vice around him. Derek’s nails, elongated and sharp in their half-transformed state, dig into the skin of Stiles’ forearm. He winces in pain, but he’s too busy hacking up both lungs to make any sort of noise of discomfort. “Derek,” he tries again once he has enough control over his spasming throat. “Derek, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

But it’s as if Derek can’t hear him. His grip is tight on Stiles, his face towards the flames that devour the building they’d just escaped from and his breathing erratic, drawing in rasping breaths of anxiety in what Stiles can only start to realize is a panic attack.

Shit. _Fire_.

Of fucking course, fire would be cataclysmic to Derek, not to mention a burning building. One they had just been trapped in. Whatever the witches had done, it had been too much for him to keep his composure. Way too much.

Derek’s breathing grows more erratic as Stiles’ starts to ease some—though he knows he’ll need a mask and some oxygen at some point to combat the damage done—and he needs to be calmed down before the attack can take total hold over him.

Stiles can’t move much, not with the grip Derek has on him, but he can lift a hand to press against Derek’s chest, and he can bend his head enough to press his cheek to the werewolf’s and ensure he’s heard, ignoring the scratchy feeling his stubble has on Stiles’ somewhat smoother cheek when he moves to do both.

“Derek,” he tries again, more forcefully this time. His voice scrapes with the name, but he guesses it’s better than nothing. He can’t tell how loud he’s talking, and he only hopes it’s not so loud he’ll be given hell for it later. “Listen to me, Derek. You’re not in there, you’re out, and you’re _safe_ from it. You’re here, and you’re safe. They couldn’t get to you. They couldn’t _hurt_ you, you were able to escape.”

Derek’s breathing hitches, Stiles can feel the way his chest catches and stutters. Derek doesn’t relax, not even an inch, but the panic hasn’t continued to grow in the span of moments Stiles has spoken to him. It was a start; one Stiles must push.

“Breathe, Derek,” Stiles tries, patting his hand on Derek’s chest. “Listen to my voice, okay? Jesus, come on. Breathe, breathe with me.” Frantic, Stiles tries to draw in a breath, to get Derek to follow his steps, but he chokes on the inhale and splutters. “Fuck,” he chokes out once he’s regained control of his esophagus again, “okay, that was my bad. Shit, trying again. Just breathe, come on.”

It takes a long time. So long that Stiles actually starts to hear sirens coming, declaring his hearing about as back as it was going to get right now, but Derek eventually calms down completely. His breath ghosts against Stiles’ ear. Stiles doesn’t move him, but he does know they’re going to have to get out soon if they don’t want to be accused of arson.

Finally, Derek pulls away, looking solemn. Stiles looks back at him, unsure of how to react, when Derek bows his head down. “Thanks,” he says, and he sounds the most genuine Stiles has ever heard him be. “Thank you, Stiles.”

“Anytime, man,” Stiles replies after hesitating in reaction. “Panic attacks are one of my specialties. I got you.”

Derek only looks at him with a look Stiles has never seen him use before, but he doesn’t get the time to analyze it, because Derek’s standing up and holding out a hand for Stiles to take. Which he does, then nearly falls back to the ground when the world swirls around him.

“Fuck,” he spits.

“Your ear’s messed up,” Derek says from beside him. Stiles realizes his arm’s around Derek’s shoulders, and they’re moving slowly away from the fire. “We’ll have to get you to a hospital.”

“What about the witch?” Stiles slurs. The world is swimming.

“Something interrupted her. Whatever she was doing to me, it stopped. I’ll go back out for her after I’ve dropped you off.”

“Him,” Stiles says, confused. “The witch was a guy. He hit me.”

Derek frowns. “Oh. I guess I couldn’t tell, he caught me with a trap and I didn’t really look at his face.”

“Just be careful, Derek, okay?” Stiles begs, because he knows there’s no possible way he can argue for Derek to just not go looking. The witch was too dangerous to be left on his own. “Really careful.”

“I will, Stiles,” Derek says, and Stiles believes him.

\---

Derek calls Deaton on a payphone they find just outside the copse of trees the burning house had been nestled deep into, using money he scared out of some poor guy riding his bike into the suburbs. Deaton is relieved they’re okay, but he recommends calling Scott at the soonest possible time. Guilt hits Stiles; Scott was probably panicking. When he pats his pockets in search of his phone, however, he realizes he probably dropped it back in the woods by Derek’s place, where he’d been hit. Scott would have to wait.

Deaton arranges a cover story for them using connections in the hospital nearby and Derek half-carries—then fully-carries when Stiles nearly wipes out on some badly paved sidewalk—Stiles there, healing fully himself before they even reach the front doors. They get some suspicious looks from the nurse who checks them in, but the doctor who looks Stiles over must know what’s up, because she doesn’t do anything but strap an oxygen mask on Stiles and work on cleaning and stitching him up.

“You’ve ruptured one of your eardrums,” she declares after cleaning the blood away from said ear and giving it a look. “Not badly enough to need any special work, though. It’ll heal in a few weeks, just don’t mess with it.”

“I can fly home, though, right?” Stiles asks her. Derek looks up curiously from his position in the chair in the corner. Having to babysit Stiles until he was healed enough to go back to Beacon Hills? Wouldn’t that just be his dream come true.

Luckily for both Stiles and Derek, flying is allowed. Protective measures would need to be taken, but he wasn’t stranded in New York until further notice.

He will, however, sound like a chain-smoker for a little while longer.

 Yeah, everyone’s going to _love_ that.

\---

They find the Bestiary on the front step when Stiles is released from the hospital and they manage to find their way back to the property, but that’s not what shocks them. Next to the Bestiary, staining the concrete of the step, is the witch. Dead.

His throat is ripped out, and Stiles has to choke on a gag as his mind takes in the mess of blood and gore the guy’s face has become. His necklace—which Stiles _knows_ he’d been wearing—is missing, and he’s very much dead. And, now, very much unidentifiable. Stiles can tell it’s him all the same, the hairstyle is the same and the magic flaring off the guy in dying waves makes Stiles dizzy in a familiar, gross sort of way.

“What that _necessary_?” Stiles croaks around the hand he’d pressed to his mouth. Derek looks uncomfortable, though whether because of Stiles’ reaction or the fact there was a body chilling out on his front step, Stiles didn’t know.

“Eliza must have had her reasons for … removing evidence,” Derek gruffly mutters. He carefully reaches around and picks up the Bestiary, then tucks it into the crook of his arm.

“Removing his _face_. Ugh,” Stiles turns away and inches around the body with his back to it. “I can’t look at him. This in combination with the magic is making me sick.”

“Are you sure it’s him?” asks Derek. Stiles has no doubt he’s still full-on staring at the corpse.

“Yeah. He’s missing the necklace and, you know, _his face_ —” Stiles stops to rub his hand over his mouth, and Derek takes the opportunity to add, “And his throat. She took that out, too.”

“Gee, Derek, thanks for that one,” Stiles spits over his shoulder, and he can hear the smug enjoyment Derek got from that. “And his throat, okay, but it’s still him. I know it’s him. Same skin, hair, magic. It’s him.”

“You’re sure he was wearing jewelry?”

“Yes, I saw the damn thing right before he knocked me out. I’ll draw you a picture if you really want me to.”

“Deaton would want like to know what was on it. If Eliza took it, it means it was probably an important symbol.” Derek runs a hand over his jaw in thought, which Stiles knows only because can _hear_ it. Get him away from the source of magic immediately, please, fuck. “He might have had a specific goal he was working towards connected to whatever symbol he wore.”

“Fine, okay.” Stiles trips of the step into the house, catching his hand on the doorframe to keep from wiping out. “I need to get away from him. Like, now. Pronto. Stilinski, out.”

Derek doesn’t go after Stiles. Hanging back to dispose of the body before questions can arise, probably, but Stiles is too thrown off by the whole thing to bother going back and asking. He opts for a bath instead, because he’s tired as hell and he doesn’t want to have to worry constantly about getting water in his ear. Plus, it’s a sunken bath big enough for two, and Stiles has never had the chance to experience something of that caliber before.

As expected, it’s bliss, and he definitely falls asleep twice while in it. A smaller man would have drowned, Stiles feels lucky Derek didn’t think him dead and come barging into the bathroom.

“You didn’t ask me if I drowned,” Stiles says later as he’s climbing into the gigantic bed. Derek’s reading a book—The Maze Runner, really, is that the copy he “lost”?—and he sets it down once Stiles is settled in.

“This isn’t a movie. Cliché dialogue won’t get you anywhere,” Derek responds drily. Stiles blinks at him. “I could hear you breathing when I checked,” Derek admits.

“Can’t kill me that easily,” Stiles says haughtily, then burrows into the comforter and pillow prison he’s made himself and falls asleep the moment his eyes close. He completely misses the expression that crosses Derek’s face, along with the way his fingers crush into the book in his lap, his knuckles white and the blood drained from his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter left, should be.


	7. Chapter 7

Recovering turns out to be a more intimate affair than Derek is used to, and Stiles blames that on the fact he never bothered to stick around Scott and the others after any fights, even if they happened to be particularly nasty ones. Stiles is used to gathering together and making a day of it, even if part of it is in school, and the constant “do you feel panicky at all?” and “your burn’s fully healed, right?” Stiles throws at him are returned with an increasingly annoyed response of “I’m a _werewolf_ , Stiles, I healed _yesterday_! I’m fine!” It’s nothing like recovering with Scott and Lydia. Hell, even Isaac had handled it better the first time he’d gone through it, but Isaac’s also always been a little more touchy-feely than he let on.

Derek, however, was having none of it.

He asked Stiles once, once, how his lungs were feeling and if he wanted to go back to the hospital, and never asked again after Stiles had given his answer.

Maybe Derek had been more of a victim in this situation—seriously, Stiles was legitimately still worried about his well-being, after what had happened—but he didn’t act like it. He’d moved on from the situation entirely, too busy pouring over the Bestiary that had been found on the front doorstep without a note and relaying to Deaton information on the witch. Stiles has conflicting thoughts on that side of the matter, but most of the time it just makes him wish he were home with his friends.

Their flight back was booked for the following morning, so he’d be home before he knew it, but the waiting and hurting still sucked big time.

“No, dude, it’s like, seven stitches,” Stiles says into his recovered phone, which Derek had brought back for him after locating it. He reaches over and flips the stove off, cramming the phone against his shoulder and picking up the hot kettle with his other hand. “The bandages on my wrists make me feel kind of badass, though.”

Scott makes a huffing noise, which almost makes Stiles drop the phone _and_ the kettle, because the static it creates in his ear _hurts_.

“Stop _doing_ that,” Stiles scolds him. “I’m still tweaking out from the residual magic and the speaker on my phone is busted from that bitch with a W. One wrong move and I’ll have third-degree burns everywhere.”

“Sorry,” Scott says sheepishly. “You’re feeling alright, though?”

Stiles allows himself a small content sigh, expressed in his head rather than vocally. At least he still had Scott, even if it wasn’t in his physical form.

“Surprisingly, yeah,” Stiles confirms for the third time, because Scott had used intervals between subject changes to ask, and the answer was still the same. “I haven’t really done much to require movement, though. Writing might end up being a horror story in the making.”

Derek slides into the kitchen just as Stiles tops off the pot of coffee with hot water and takes the kettle from him before he even registers what’s going on.

“Uh,” he says elegantly, cutting Scott off from his comment on something relating to his clothing choices of the day.

“What?” Scott asks just as Derek is saying, “You shouldn’t be using your wrists to hold heavy things.”

“It’s just a pot of water,” Stiles protests at the same time Scott says, “Oh, Derek.”

“They’re not going to heal as fast if you keep moving them.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I’m not calling you in every time I need to execute some ample wrist movements. A guy needs to do himself sometimes.”

“Um,” Scott says into Stiles ear, and Derek looks at him like he’s lost a few screws.

“That was intended,” Stiles says, and knows it’s enough of the truth not to get caught. “I just wanted coffee. I’ll live through a few extra minutes of healing for my erroneous methods.”

Derek makes a noise of exasperation and starts banging around the kitchen, through the cabinets and drawers for something. Stiles doesn’t pay him any further attention.

“I’m not made of glass,” Stiles says into the phone.

“You were just complaining you felt unloved,” Scott retorts in amusement. Stiles hears Derek pause, but only for the smallest of moments before returning to his loud endeavor.

Stiles clears his throat. “I’m just homesick.”

“I miss you too, buddy,” Scott tells him, mockingly, but with enough sincerity underlying it that Stiles has to smile. Man, he wished he were home.

When Stiles is finally released from his conversation, he shoves his phone away and finds the coffee brewed and Derek with a bowl of oatmeal on the counter setting, the werewolf himself leaning a hip against a counter and idly stirring the goop.

“You’re supposed to cover that,” Stiles says, pointing with a mug he pulled from a cabinet at the bowl.

“Whatever,” Derek offers huffily, and Stiles decides not to get a second mug out in spite.

“Wow, okay, what’s got your britches in a twist all of a sudden?”

“My britches are fine. I’m fine,” Derek says, this time gruffly. Like a little kid angry at a parent. It’d be weird if it wasn’t Derek.

“Uh huh,” Stiles says. He pours his coffee, his back to Derek. “You were fine earlier. Now you’re suddenly a big bag of grump.” Cup full, he sets it on a counter and hops up onto it to face Derek. “Spill. What’s wrong?”

Derek stares at Stiles, his spoon motionless in the bowl now. He doesn’t say anything. Stiles is about to count the conversation a dud when Derek suddenly ducks his head, looking vaguely upset.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. Stiles is caught off guard by the apology and only stares.

“Huh?” he says, unable to process enough to sound remotely eloquent.

Derek glares up at him.

“No, I’m not asking you to say it again,” Stiles says, one hand up, when he realizes Derek misinterpreted his confused response. “I’m asking why you apologized. You didn’t do anything. Hell, you saved my ass. Again.”

“But you’re not happy staying here, which is just extra shit to deal with when you’re already injured.”

Stiles blinks in confusion, his brain stumbling over the conversation. Derek’s eyes look off to the side, his expression unchanging.

“Okay, hold on,” Stiles starts, then decides to set his coffee down, because this was serious. “Yes, I would prefer to be back in Beacon Hills while I’m injured, I won’t argue that. But I’m not _unhappy_ I’m here. I’m just not used to it. All the times I’ve been injured over the past, what, four years? I’ve been with Scott and Lydia and Mrs. McCall and my dad. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Derek.”

Derek’s looked back and away multiple times as Stiles spoke, but now he looks at Stiles and there’s confusion in his eyes. Like something isn’t adding up. It’s confusing Stiles in turn.

“Derek, you’re not making sense here, okay. Why the hell would I be unhappy here? I have you, it’s not like I’m alone in this.”

Silence meets Stiles’ words. Derek’s eyes bore into his, and his expression hints at some sort of inner war happening in his head. Stiles kind of wishes he could read minds, just this once.

“You said we didn’t click,” Derek finally says, his eyes dropping to the floor and his expression hinting at embarrassment. His hand raises up and his fingers knead at his shoulder in a nervous gesture. “Your exact words, I think, were, ‘we don’t click, we don’t have any type of connection.’”

Stiles feels his heart drop into his stomach, because Derek was right. Those were Stiles’ words to Scott when he’d been whisper-arguing with him over _his_ best friend flub. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Stiles that Derek would have been listening in. “That’s not— _Derek_ ,” Stiles tries when Derek looks up at him, then tries to look away. “I was being an ass and trying to make Scott see my point, I didn’t actually mean it.”

The look Derek gives him could only be described as dubious. “I know we’re not _best_ friends,” he says, “and we’ve had a weird relationship over the years, but I never assumed our relationship was _that_ estranged.” Derek switches arms, kneading his other shoulder with a sigh. “Then again, I’ve always had a lot of issues with connections.”

Stiles can’t help but snort, because _yeah_. Derek’s lips quirk and he looks up again, both eyebrows raised in that expression he made when he was amused but wondering if Stiles wasn’t _too_ amused at whatever it was he was busy being amused over. Then, suddenly, with the recognition of Derek’s expression, Stiles realizes he knows how to read Derek better than he’d been claiming, better than he’d ever bothered to claim, and his heart’s back in his stomach again. It must be evident on his face, because Derek’s expression droops in response.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Stiles admits after a moment. “And we do have a connection. Maybe not the whole werewolf-supernatural-mind-whatever connection that you had with everyone in your pack, but I wouldn’t be as comfortable berating you all the time if I didn’t consider us to have _some_ sort of semi-friendly relationship. I’m not _suicidal_.”

Derek snorts, his hand flying up in the air like he’s swatting Stiles’ idea away in favor of his own. “I always considered it to be more than that. You were our token human, Stiles, come on. Spastic and confusing a majority of the time, but still a necessity to have.”

“Wow,” Stiles says sarcastically, his hand moving to his heart as he mocks offense. “Such a position of prestige. Almost makes me feel like I really was one of your little groupies and not just the asshole who attended all the parties he wasn’t invited to.”

“What?” Derek asks, sounding genuinely surprised. He blinks, and then his expression softens into one that almost looks like—no, yeah, that’s genuine hurt. Stiles has hurt Derek’s feelings, someone call Ripley’s. “You were always part of the pack,” he starts, slowly. “Both mine, and then Scott’s when he became his own alpha. I never thought that claim was disputed.” He pauses long enough to cover his mouth with his hand and drag it down to his chin, eyes searching the air for something Stiles can’t name before they’re back to meeting his. “You were very important to all of us. Why do you think we always tried to make sure you were safe? You _are_ very important to all of us. And not just because you’re the second-best researcher.”

A warm feeling blooms in Stiles’ chest at Derek’s words, and he tries to keep his face from melting into—ah, nope, there it goes. Stiles can feel his face going gooey. He quickly tries to hide the moment behind his hand, but it only makes it worse, because Derek’s interest peaks at the unusual movement. Stiles could practically see his ears perk up with curiosity. Over _Stiles’_ emotions.

 _Don’t start crying, shit,_ Stiles tells himself, unsure if the threat were really there but not wanting to cut corners. He definitely felt the fuzzy, gooey warmth spreading everywhere at Derek’s admittance, but he wasn’t sure if it was _cry-_ worthy.

“That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Stiles tells Derek after a moment. Derek shoots him a confused look, his lips twitching into a smile. “But I’m not second-best. Lydia and I still share joint custody of the title.”

“I don’t know about that, Stiles.”

“I think we should take vote on it when we get back. Exercise the power of democracy for claim to the throne.”

“Throne?” Derek repeats, half amusement and half confusion. “Wouldn’t that be a monarchy?”

“Monarcracy. Demarchy.” Stiles makes a face. “Shut up.”

Derek shakes his head. “You need to get out more.”

“Like you’re one to talk, dude.”

 “We already established I had issues, but I still got out more than you did. I’m out all the time now.”

“TMI, Derek,” Stiles says, mocking disgust, and Derek starts laughing. Stiles follows with his own laugh, and they spend a few minutes like that; in the kitchen, coffee and oatmeal growing cold beside them, laughing until it dissolves down into snickers and shared looks of amusement. It only solidifies Derek’s words, making Stiles regret what he’d claimed to Scott in his argument even more, because they weren’t true, and everyone already knew it.

Everyone except Derek.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles tells Derek once they’ve settled into a calm silence, “about what I said. We do click, and we do have a connection. I was just being a frustrated dick.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees, flashing Stiles a grin. “But I’ll consider it payback for all the times I tried to terrorize you for fun.”

“Gee,” Stiles mumbles, knowing Derek can hear him just fine, “how considerate of you.”

Derek just starts snickering again.

\---

The flight back to Beacon Hills is significantly more chill than the one into New York had been. Stiles now knows that this is because of his jerk move and big mouth, but he doesn’t dwell on wishing he’d shut up and just accepted his fate. Instead, he enjoys the acceptance and contentment he receives from Derek, whom spends most the flight showing Stiles pictures and passages in the Bestiary. Stiles finds more than one he wants to add to his own Bestiary, and they have a small struggle over Stiles’ want to dog-ear or mark the page for later and Derek’s insistence that they not ruin a copy of something that was on loan to them from a close friend that would probably never let him live it down if he messed the book up. Derek wins, but only after allowing Stiles to use his phone to take pictures of the pages he wants to come back to later (“Because that bitch cracked mine! Look!”).

When they arrive, Derek takes care of Stiles’ bags for him, and Stiles doesn’t protest once. Nor does he complain when Derek slides into the driver’s seat without a word, but only because this time it _was_ Derek’s car, and Derek didn’t need to risk Stiles behind the wheel with injured wrists.

Before Stiles can go home, though, they find out they’re needed to convene with the others at Deaton’s office. Stiles is okay with this, too, because Scott and Lydia and everyone will be there, and his dad’s at work anyway and won’t be home until that night. He wants to see his friends, badly, and a boring meeting isn’t going to keep him from wanting to be where they are.

Derek drives him there and even offers to help him out of the car, which he refuses on the spot.

“I busted an ear, Derek. My legs work fine,” Stiles says, waving Derek away so he can get out.

“Sometimes you have vertigo,” Derek mumbles back, but he moves away from the door all the same and proceeds to the front door of the vet’s. Stiles watches him go before climbing from his seat and wondering briefly about the sudden change in Derek’s demeanor. It was so much closer to the Derek he’d become before leaving—why hadn’t Stiles realized this before? He’d known Derek for such a long time.

He doesn’t give himself time to ponder over it, though, because Scott’s face appears in the glass of the door, and Stiles wants nothing more than to be inside and making him jealous over his experiences in New York. Except for the witch bit. That was nothing to be jealous over.

\---

The meeting is dull and filled with a lot of technical words and theories that Stiles listens to but doesn’t quite hear due to the exhaustion of the flight he’d just been on settling in. He’d get a recap from Lydia, whom is listening intently and pressing her hand to her chin in though the entire time Deaton talks, later, at a time when his brain is up for processing and thinking. The sprites were still a problem, obviously, but they could wait another day while he recharged.

“We’ll start on the preventative measures tomorrow,” Deaton says, aware of Stiles and his wavering attention. More because Stiles had stopped pilfering through the drawers of the new filing cabinet Deaton had picked up in exhaustion than him actually paying acute attention to Stiles himself. Deaton really was busy, and it was evident from the stacks and stacks of papers and folders covering every surface. There’s the hint of amusement in Deaton’s tone as he continues, “After all party members have had a chance to sleep off their jetlag.”

“Amen,” Stiles says with a nod. Derek looks at him from his spot across the small room, but he also doesn’t show any signs of jetlag or wear from the trip, so Stiles considers him an outlier in this equation of exhaustion. “The sooner I get my ass home, the better. I could sleep right here if I didn’t think that could be a hazard to my well-being.”

Deaton gives him a confused look, but Stiles doesn’t elaborate. This office had seen too much, and Stiles wasn’t just talking about the animals that filtered in and had work done, like most veterinarian places did. There were more supernatural instances, though they were few and far between, but Stiles had had enough of that area of the world for now. He just wanted to go home, to his own bed, where nothing supernatural would follow because Malia was out of town right now.

“Do you need a ride home?” Scott asks from behind him.

“Are you asking me if I want to ride bitch on your bike?” Stiles questions. Scott rolls his eyes and holds up a set of keys.

“I have the car, smartass. I brought Lydia and Kira.”

“Oh.” Stiles looks to the two girls in question, both leaning over and looking at an open page of the Bestiary, and realizes that this makes sense. His brain was too far behind his reasoning skills, as sparse as they could be at times. “No,” he says, aware of Derek hovering nearby. “My stuff’s in Derek’s car. It would make more sense for him to drop me off.”

“Suit yourself,” Scott says, then pats Stiles on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, then looks to Derek. “You’re cool with that, right? You brought me here, and you have all my stuff.”

“I assumed it was like that in the first place,” Derek replies. “I can’t go home until I get things started here anyway, so taking you home isn’t a big deal.”

Right. Derek didn’t live in Beacon Hills anymore. Strange how something as normal as a meeting with Deaton over something happening in Beacon Hills yet again made Stiles forget the group wasn’t what it used to be. That realization does weird things to Stiles’ chest, so he pushes it away and focuses on the yawn pulling at his mouth instead. When he looks at Derek again, the werewolf looks amused.

“I can see you laughing at my feeble humanity,” Stiles accuses. A smirk pulls as Derek’s lips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says as he turns away, his own keys flipping around his fingers.

Stiles bids his friends goodbye for the day and follows Derek out to his car. Derek doesn’t offer to help him or open his door this time, which Stiles appreciates. The drive back to Stiles’ place is quiet, but that’s probably because Stiles spends most of it dozing off in his seat and Derek is content enough not to bother waking him up at any point. He doesn’t wake up when Derek pulls into his driveway, nor when Derek opens his own door and proceeds to unpack Stiles’ things from the car. What does finally wake him up is Derek placing a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and shaking, which jars him from sleep so suddenly that he flails just the smallest of amounts, causing Derek to have to duck away from one of Stiles’ hands as it nears his face.

“Sorry,” Stiles says, rubbing an eye with his fist once he pulls it out of Derek’s space. Coherence slowly filters into his brain at the sight of his Jeep alone in front of his house. “Dad’s not home yet.”

Derek looks. His dad’s car isn’t in the drive, which means he must be staying late for one unexpected reason or another. “Oh. Should I stay?”

“What?” Stiles turns to Derek sharply, then has to wait a second for his vision to clear up when the sudden movement causes his eyes to fill with black spots. “No, he’ll be home soon. You’re relieved from your position as my babysitter, Derek. You can go home.”

“I wasn’t babysitting you,” Derek protests.

“Yeah, and you’re not babysitting me now either. I’ll be fine. Are those my bags?” Stiles points to the lumps on his front step, suddenly realizing they were there.

“Yeah. I don’t have a key or I would have taken them inside.”

“I can handle that, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” Derek says quietly, though not without the stubborn undertone that often came with Derek and arguments. Stiles eyes him, but he doesn’t push the argument, because this is Derek being nice to him and trying to be a good friend, and Stiles isn’t going to go and outright insult him again. Instead, he sighs and pats Derek on the shoulder before sliding off his seat and out of the car.

“Thanks,” Stiles says, leaning down to fit in the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yup. You can handle getting those in?”

Stiles resists the need to roll his eyes. “I’ve got it.”

“Great. Later.”

Stiles pulls away, shuts the door of the car, and watches as Derek pulls out of his driveway and out of sight. As soon as he’s gone, exhaustion overwhelms Stiles again, and he briefly wonders if it would be so wrong to just slide into his car and take a short nap before taking all his things into the house. Maybe he should have asked Derek for help.

“Shut up, Stiles,” he mutters to himself, throwing his first bag over his shoulder with a wince when it pulls on the muscles in his wrist. There are only two bags, but they each weigh enough to annoy his tender wrists, so lugging them inside is more painful than Stiles would like at a time when sleeping in the seat of his Jeep sounded like a blessing to his tired body.

With the ringtone of his phone going off, Stiles’ night only proceeds to get worse.

“Tonight?” Stiles asks after picking up the call. It’s his dad, and there’s something wrong with his car that he doesn’t feel like fixing tonight. He needs Stiles to come and pick him up.

“No, Stiles, tomorrow night, I’ve decided living at the station was in my best interests,” his dad replies sarcastically.

“This is for all the salad, isn’t it.” Stiles sighs, looking over the table for his keys. “Okay, but you’re driving home. I’ll fall asleep at the wheel at this rate.”

“It’s a ten-minute drive, Stiles.”

“Just telling you now so I can’t be held liable.”

“I’m not even going to bother correcting you. Just get here, okay?”

“Yeah. See you in a minute.”

“That better not be a hint you’re planning on speeding.”

“ _Bye_ , Dad,” Stiles says, then hangs his broken phone up. He thinks of his bed upstairs, which he misses even in the wake of the wonders he experienced at Derek’s place. “Sweet, sweet love of mine,” Stiles calls up the stairs as he passes them. “I’ll be back for you soon.”

The window to his Jeep is open when Stiles reaches it, which tells him his dad’s car must have been acting up the past week, because only his dad forgets to put the windows up when he takes Stiles’ Jeep. Stiles throws his phone in onto the seat with a sigh and reaches in to unlock the car door, but stops cold when a laugh huffs in the air just behind him. For a moment, he doesn’t move. For a moment, he doesn’t even breathe.

“Hello?” Stiles tries when nothing happens. He turns slowly, trying to see where the sound could have come from and who could have snuck up on him so easily.

Suddenly, a sound like a cracking whip bites the air and an unbelievable pain nearly splits Stiles’ head in two. Black spots bloom across his vision and he feels consciousness begin to slip from him like sand through his fingers, his body crumpling against his will to rush towards the door of his jeep. He slumps against it, his hands scrabbling sluggishly and uselessly against the metal, his head throbbing as he fades. Just before it all overtakes him, Stiles catches a glimpse of a silver wolf set in the web of a star out of the corner of his eye and thinks “ _not again_ ” before succumbing fully to the incapacitating blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops there may be a sequel in the making. Why is it not just included in this one? Well, because it's a different story, in a sense, and it's going to have a VERY different rating than this one. Mature, in the very least, with a lot more trigger warnings.
> 
> I'm writing it now, but it's going to need a lot of work. Thanks for reading all of this, though! I appreciate it like you wouldn't believe. If you're planning on sticking around for the next one, then thank you for that, too!
> 
> (The real Sterek is also planned for that one, more than this friendship stuff. This was build-up for that. You'll see.)
> 
> That's all for now, folks.


End file.
